Whitewater

Hey all,

It seems like time for a guest blog post from the Seth side of SethandJessica.us.  A few days ago, we took a rafting trip down the world’s tallest commercially rafted waterfall, a seven-meter (23′) flume, surrounded by rainforest.  It was quite a ride!

Our rafting company, Kaitiaki Rafting, had a photographer documenting the trip for us, so I thought we’d share some of the photos.  After a short Mauri prayer to ask the river to look over us, we hopped in the raft and headed for the first rapids.  Here we are below the first sizable rapids.

Jessica and I are in the second and third rows

Here we go through some of the rapids

The water in the river was fairly warm, so it felt good to get drenched by the rapids.  It wasn’t long before our little raft was heading over the big waterfall.  Here goes!

We tuck into the bottom of the raft to begin down the waterfall

The raft goes vertical as the water envelopes us

We drop into the frothing water at the bottom of the waterfall

Are we going to make it?

It doesn’t look good

We’re coming back up!

The raft became a bathtub

But we made it!

Well, most of us did

Our companion is helped back in the raft as we drift below the waterfall

It was an exhilarating experience.  I thought the raft might fold in half.  Our guide admitted afterward that he took a “dodgy line” down the waterfall and we had a 50/50 chance of flipping.  We celebrated with a group photo:

Conquers of the 23-foot waterfall

Jessica slipped and fell out of the raft

How embarrassing!

Below the waterfall, there was more fun rafting.  Our guide told us it was all class 3 rapids, but he’d make it seem like class 5.  At one point he told us to jump out of the raft, which we did obediently (the water was warm).  Then he told us to let go of the raft, which we did reluctantly.  We drifted away from the raft and went over a smaller rapid on our own.  The force of the water spun us around, so that was a lot of fun.  We also went over a rapid “Hawaii Five-0” style-standing up with our paddles raised above our heads.  At the end of the trip, Jessica hopped up front and we paddled back into some rapids so Jessica could pose getting a face full of water.

The person you can’t see is Jessica

Our raft actually got stuck below the rapid in a cycle getting sucked in and pushed back by the water, splashing us all repeatedly as the raft barely stayed upright. Our guide got a bit concerned when he couldn’t get us out right away, but we were laughing and smiling the entire time.   The whole rafting trip was great and quite an adrenaline rush.

I’ll turn it back over to Jessica to write about her side of our experience, but hopefully I’ll pop back on soon to share a few photos from our trip to Hobbiton, which was also fantastic.