White Water What?!

One of the coolest things about being in a program (aka Butler) is that they let you do free things. Well, they aren’t really free because I paid them a lot of money, but it feels like they’re free because we just go. Anyway Butler took us for an ‘Adventure Weekend!” To be honest, all I knew is that we were going whitewater rafting. I didn’t really read any emails about it and just winged it. I have to say that going into an activity with no expectations makes for a very pleasantly pleasing time.

The trip was suppose to be ‘pirate’ themed and thought the grape vine it was rumoured that we were to dress up. So I just wore my black swishy skirt with a white shirt and a red bandana. It was comfy, but the looks I got when I got off the bus at the rafting place were great. I don’t think they knew that we were dressing up, and that I was just a dumb girl wearing a skirt to white water raft. Embarrassing.

The rafting place was up in Ragitata . It was a really nice lodge that was plucked down in the middle of a valley. Sweet fact is that this is where we went rafting was where the Rohan city of Etoras in Lord of the Rings was filmed!! It was so awesome, all of us were super excited and pretty much gushing over it. Yet another reason I love it here, I’m not super lame for absolutely loving LOTR.

Before we headed off, we were all outfitted by the rafting company. Polypro, wetsuit (that was really really really hard for girls to get on) fleece, jacket, helmet and sweet booties. We all looked pretty much exactly the same, but whatever, we were warm! When we got there, we all split up into 7 person rafts and were paired with an instructor. Our instructor was Cameron P. lovingly known as Cam P. He was and Aussie, but still awesome. So we were all standing there watching him fiddle with some stuff. Then he pushes the boat into the river and starts to paddle. We were all pretty confused and just sorta watched him. He shouted to us “Hurry up and get in! Or it’ll be a long walk back”. We all kinda just stared at him, was he serious? But he kept going. This man was not a joker and I should have known we were in for one heck of a ride.

I'm in the Green Helmet three people in from the right

While we floated down the calm part of the river, Cam started to tell us about the safety and other tips about rafting. The more important bits were about what to do if you ‘leave’ the raft. After explaining to us what to do, he said. “Alright, left side (which was my side), it was nice to see you, but its time to bail. See you!)” And he just stares. No one was doing anything, and he kept watching. So I drop my paddle in the boat and scuba roll off the side. A few seconds later people realize whats up and follow me. I get pulled back in and Cam says “Glad to see someone listens” . The next side did it, but upon pulling people in the one kid Shawn, pulled them up wrong. He wasn’t a very good listener at all and this bugged Cam. So Cam made Shawn demonstrate how to float down a rapid. It was pretty funny because Shawn was just floating there down a level 2 rapid and Cam says, ‘”Yea, I’m just going to let him float there for a while, maybe then he’ll listen”. Brilliant. I hope if I ever have to deal with someone who doesn’t listen I can just toss them down a rapid.

So the rapids were great, there were a bunch of 3’s and 4’s. The highest level is a level 5 rapid, and there were two of those. But the 3’s and 4’s were the best because you got to paddle and in level 5’s you had to just hunker down and let Cam have all the fun paddling. And you know how much I love to paddle. When you flip through the pictures, every single one I’m bright eyed and just grinning while all around me people are grimacing or cowering. I loved it. Such a rush.

Later on down the river we were allowed to go swimming. But we had to jump about 12 feet in to the water , no worries since I jumped 35ish feet a few weeks ago. My boat was the first to go, and I was the third to jump in. No one really said anything when they jumped in, so I figured the water wasn’t that cold. Off I went and I quickly realized why the first two didn’t say anything. IT WAS TO COLD TO. The temperature was so frigid that it literally knocked the breath out of you and constricted your entire body freezing your muscles. The water we were swimming was only 4 odd hours off a glacier according to Cam. So you figure we were swimming in water just barely above freezing.

After floating down a few hundred feet we met up with our rafts and our instructors. Next was cliff jumping! I really love cliff jumping now. We started off small with about a 20 foot jump. Nothing to bad. Some people didn’t want to jump, others took a while, but most just went for it. The next jump we could do was about the same, if not a touch higher than the Taylor’s mistake jump. While Cam was telling people how to jump (we had some painful falls with promises for bruises on some people) I was just hanging back talking to Damon and some other people. Then I hear my name called, I look up and see Cam motioning to me. “Alright Liz, you first. Off you go.” I just stared, but there was no arguing with this man. So I just walked off and jumped like it was nothing! So proud of myself. I think it was good because some of the people behind me were really unsure about going, but I think seeing me just jump was a good motivator. I remember how scary it was when Juli kept backing out on me, really freaked me out.

The following is a series of pictures of a trip down a level 5 rapid. I think they are my favourite out of the bunch

Okay, so the girl in the blue helmet at the top by the guy paddling is who we're talking about. Here she is just trying desperately to hold on.

But it's not looking good. She is flying forward! Gah!

Catapulted into oblivion! But wait, Cam notices the distressed Nicole flying through the air!

The hand of Cam (he could be God for Nicole though) reaching out for the snag, will he grab her in time? Tune in next picture for results!

Saved! And now he goes to grab my paddle, I'm right in front of him.

After the rafting we all went back and took showers. For the girls, there were maybe like 25 of us and 1 shower space with 4 shower heads. But it was a great shower after being so cold for so long. Then we had an amazing lunch of sausages and potatoes with some salads on the amazing porch that I fell in love with. People after pretty much laid around, but myself and some others were ready for some exploring having been give pretty much free range of the surrounding area. We started off up a hill, but the road was a dead end and the view of the valley and fields. Not bad, but not adventurous enough by any means.

View of the Lodge

So back down we went and headed for where we imagined the river to be. There were 5 of us, Chelsea, Mikayla, Kyle, Damon and myself. The walk was very enjoyable with the sun and a slight breeze. We eventually came to a gated grazing pasture. In the nearby enclosure were some red deer baying. It was pretty cool. That is one of the strange things about New Zealand that is hard to get over, the fact that deer aren’t ‘wild’ but rather farmed. You’ll be driving and there will just be deer farms, just like cows or sheep. Kiwis think it’s so strange to have the possibility of having a deer just walking around. I guess it would be almost like having a cow walking around. Anyway, I suggested that we had come this far, and that all we had to do was go into this empty area through the gate and out the other side where the river more than likely was. It took some convincing, but it worked. Kyle was the hardest; he wants to work as a chemical engineer at some sort of government place with high security clearance. Of course they would look to see if he jumped any fence in his crazy uninhibited youth. Damon was pretty easy but this stage he’s used to my shenanigans. He said to me “Liz, I have never done so many illegal things until I met you”. Granted, all of these illegal things are strictly jumping fences which we are getting quite good at (remember that first weekend walking to Sumner from Lyttleton and almost falling off a cliff?).

Anyway, we got to the other end, and of course there was no gate out. And because these are deer pens, the fences are quite high. A good 12-15 feet I would say. It was great though, Damon didn’t even think twice and he just climbed over and jumped down. *Sniff* He’s growing up so fast. I look at the other three and they were having none of it. They said they were just going to walk back. Lame sauce, we’d come this far! Damon looked slightly concerned considering he was on the wrong side of the fence. So I joined him. But as I’ve said many times prior, my jumping abilities are sub-par at best, jumping down included. Luckily Damon is 6 feet tall, so I just jumped on his shoulders :3 what a friend indeed. Too bad I ripped my shirt on the barbed wire :/ But that didn’t matter; we were off in no time.

We saw some cool stuff on the way to the river, a skeleton some sweet gulches and rocks. The river itself was really nice. The sun was almost ready to set and the river was clear and blue. We had fun sitting and relaxing while skipping rocks then back we went.

On our way back to the lodge we saw our first wild hedgehog! He was so cute and dopy. Just waddling around. They are non-native to NZ and were first introduced to keep pests out of gardens. They do a very very good job at eating bugs and this has turned into a huge problem. They’re eating the Wetas (creepily huge crickets, biggest bugs by individual mass in the world. So now there is talk about mass hunting of the hogs. They may be cute, and Nan may have one as a pet, but I am all for it. The little guy though was really good at rolling up and being pacient for us to leave. Damon on the other hand was not patient and turns out he is a force-petter. He claims that this comes from owning a cat, but I question this.

The next day was the high ropes course. There are high and low ropes courses. Its hard to explain, but a low ropes course could be something like a single rope tied between two trees that you walk on like a tight rope, or a spider web type thing that you climb on. High ropes courses are similar, but high. Duh. They are really good for bonding and team building. We started off with some games and some team building low ropes course stuff then moved on to the high stuff. Mikayla and I volunteered first for our group to do the vine walk.

I have no idea what I was thinking, none. There was a single rope about 50ish feet long and 35 feet off the ground. About 9 feet about the main rope was another rope and hanging from this rope were ropes hanging down about ever 5-7 feet. These ropes were like vines and varied in length. This is a team one, most of the high ropes are single person with a belay team (the people who hold the rope that keeps you from falling). It’s impossible to get from one side to the other by yourself, and you need your partner to do this. By holding each other’s hand and then reaching for the next ‘vine’ you are able to get across. It was terrifying and a lot of fun. Of course because we were the first team to do it, we took forever to complete it. But still, the feeling when you were done was awesome.

It’s hard to describe the ropes course, and I didn’t take any pictures because I was busy climbing around and belaying. But it was really liberating to get over the fear of being up so high. We were all joking that because it’s such a huge trust builder that we would have our significant other do a course with us to see how they acted. You really see people true side at these things. Like who the people who listen are, the ones who are patient, the ones who are bossy, the ones who are careful; important qualities like that.

Bottom line: New Zealand, a great place to get over fears, jump over fences and learn more about the people you want to be around.

Click here for more pictures! :D

Bonus! Here is a hilarious video that shows some kiwi slang and accents. Its heaps funny.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdVHZwI8pcA