White water rafting

After Queenstown we stayed in Dunedin and Lake Tekapo and then on our way back to Christchurch we went white water rafting. As someone who swore she would never go anywhere near a white water raft, I somehow found myself sitting in one, on the Rangitata River. I figured with all the extreme sports going on around me, I might as well partake in one. I´m not quite sure what made me go for rafting, as out of all the sports, it´s probably the most dangerous by a long shot. During skydiving and all the varieties of jumps amd activities in which you are suspended up in the air somehow, you are invariably strapped on to something. During rafting, you rely only on yourself, some luck and the skill of the professional rafter steering you around the protruding rocks and agressive currents.

In the first fourty minutes or so we drifted down stream , learning along the way everything we could absorb about rafting before hitting the rapids. I was asked to move to the back of the raft, from my position in the middle. I´m assuming this was due, despite my best efforts, to my lack of upperbody strength, i.e. I was moved to the weak-arse, irrelevant part of the raft, where my impact was marginal. Just as well, as most of my energy was spent on paddling the air and holding on with all my might at the appropriate moments. I was expecting it to be a bit wilder and riskier, to be honest. My team worked well together, which I think made a difference, but during the grade "5" rapids, i.e. the massive, powerful waves and rapids which immerse you totally at several points, all we had to do was hold on for dear life. All the hard work - and it was bloody hard work - was done by the skillful raftsman at the back, telling us all what to do. And in between each rapid, we got out of the raft and looked at what we were up against next. So it was all very controlled. Unlike the reports I heard later, in Peru: 8 deaths in a year and 6 people in the last month, at the same rafting centre. My friends went rafting at this centre in Peru about two weeks ago (I didn´t want to go again so soon - I´m glad I didn´t now!) and were only told this statistic after they finished (all alive). I find this statistic absolutely staggering. The company responsible will presumably continue in this reckless way. Mind boggling.
The rafting centre in New Zealand was run by dudes (the only way to describe these guys!) who made the whole experience all the more enjoyable by their laid back friendliness, their joking, their fun-loving charm and their other general dude-like qualities.

When we arrived back in Christchurch, Briony and I returned to Valentino´s for another dose of orgasmic grub. We couldn´t resist.