White Water Rafting!

Last Sunday (the day after we went canyoning), we went white water rafting on the Wairoa River, near Rotorua. It was an incredible experience to say the least! (Sorry, but I don't have any pictures of this trip.) It was a good drive from Auckland (close to 4 hours), but there was nice scenery along the way and most people napped/listened to their iPods on the drive. We did make one bathroom/snack stop along the way.

When we arrived, we got into our wetsuits which, as the guides told us, were “pre-moistened” from the previous group. Before coming to New Zealand, I have never put on a wetsuit, and today marked the 5th time I’ve been in one (not counting the fact that when we were at the Great Barrier Reef, we got in and out of them 3 times in one day)! Putting on “wetties” has become somewhat of a joke with our group, because the guides always size you up and hand you your wetsuit – so you never know until you try it on whether it is going to be enormous on you, or practically impossible to get on. Today we also put on helmets, booties and lifejackets and then boarded the bus to bring us right to the river.

As we were listening to the guides’ instructions before getting in the rafts, I was starting to get really excited and a little nervous as well. In addition to being taught the different ways to paddle and the different directions we might receive out on the water, we were also given a crash course in what to do should we, or any of our fellow rafters, fall out. I think the scariest instructions were on what to do if the whole boat flipped over and we were all underneath it. Anyway, I tried not to think about that possibility! There were 13 of us from Loyola on this trip, but we were split up into 3 different rafts. Rich and Dana were with some other people, I was in a boat with 6 girls (myself, Kelly, Cate, Kim, Lynn and Caitlin Henzler) and then the other boat had 5 people (Jed, TK, Gennady, Steph, and Caitlin Burke). Before we left, everyone was joking around with us, saying how our boat was going to be trouble, and making bets on which of us weren’t going to make it back. Because of this, our guide gave us the nickname of “wahine toa” (which mean “the brave girls in Maori). This became out team cheer and after every rapid, we all raised our paddles and yelled out “wahine toa!”

White water rafting was SO much fun! It was definitely a little scary at times, but I really enjoyed it a lot and would love to do it again sometime. The river that we went on was a Grade 5 river (which is the highest grade that you can raft commercially) and this particular river is only open 26 days out of the year, when water is released from a dam upstream. So there were some pretty challenging rapids to navigate through and some pretty decent drops. The largest vertical waterfall that we went down was 4 meters, but some of the other waterfalls were actually more intense because they had more volume and were rockier.

We were out on the river for about two and a half hours total. Stevie, our guide, would instruct us on how we were planning on navigating the upcoming rapids (whether we would be paddling at certain spots, if we would have to all get down really low, or if we all needed to move to one side of the raft, etc.). Then we would go through the rapids/waterfalls and it was really exciting! Stevie would call out instructions and we would all do what he said, hoping that we would make it through. It really was important that we did what he said, so that we would enter into the rapids at the right spot and in the right direction. Once we cleared the rapids, we would hang out in the calm sections of the river and watch the rafts behind us go through. This part was actually really cool, because as I watched the other groups come down, I was just thinking to myself, “I can’t believe I just did that!”

We went over some Grade 3 and 4 rapids, with names such as “Mother’s Nightmare,” in preparation for the two Grade 5 rapids coming up. It was tough and very scary, but we made it down all in one piece. Then, we paddled over to a calm spot where we tied our raft up to a rock. Then, we had the option (which I took) of climbing back up a cliff to a point where we could see the other groups come down the waterfall as well. It was kind of tough to get up, because the rock was completely vertical and there were no footholds. So we had to hold onto a rope and pretty much pull ourselves up. BUT….the view was well worth it! We watched a couple of rafts come down and try to navigate the tricky rapids. On one of the boats, two people fell out on the way down.

Then, along came the other boat with all Loyola people in it (the people who were giving us grief before we left). They seemed to be having a little trouble navigating around the rocks and when they got up to the waterfall, they were actually turned around, heading down the waterfall backwards. We were kind of laughing at them, since they were teasing US about how we would do. But then, their boat totally flipped over and everyone was gone! This was WHILE they were going down the waterfall, not even that the boat flipped when it landed at the bottom. We didn’t see anyone for a couple of seconds (we found out later that they were all trapped under the raft) and then finally we spotted some heads. The looks on their faces were of sheer panic. Everyone scrambled to get back on a raft. Some of them were able to get back up, but others were getting pulled downstream. Finally, everyone was pulled to safety and it was determined that everyone was ok. Talking to people afterwards, the consensus seemed to be that while it was terrifying at the time, they were actually glad that they had the experience.

To get back off of this cliff we were standing on, we all had to jump down into the water, since it was impossible to get back down the way we had come up. We each just jumped off the cliff, one by one, and then the people on the rafts pulled us back on. We then continued down the river through all the different kinds of rapids. This was such a fun experience and I’m SO happy that I signed up for it. Wairoa River is one of New Zealand’s most exciting rafting rivers and now I’ve done it!