River-surfing...

Next day we slept through our alarms and so were woken up at 8:45am by Andy telling us we had 5 minutes to get ready and get in the Serious Fun River-Surfing van! Andy bought the Serious Fun business from someone in a pub on New Year's Eve 1999 ie Millenium Eve and business is booming. So we quickly donned our swimmers and set off down the Kawarau Gorge in a van with 15 other slightly scared looking people.

We stopped in a sand-fly-ridden layby, struggled into most attractive wetsuits, booties, life-jackets, flippers and helmets, grabbed bodyboards and set off down a steep path to the river. As there had been a lot of rain a few days before, the river was running quite fast and high and it was all pretty scary. We were quickly shown how to get into and out of an 'eddy', how to change direction, do barrel rolls, and how to hold the board in 'rapid position'! And then off we went into the centre of river and were swept off downstream!

The idea is to swim down the centre of the river, holding onto your board and riding the rapid's waves but it's a whole lot more tiring than that! The 2 guides with our group seemed to find it all so easy, but we found it really hard to change direction and have any control whatsoever - everyone was constantly bumping into each other and getting swept past each other! Going through the rapids was really good fun, probably cause you couldn't think about anything else but taking a big breath after each wave has battered you, but the rest of the time Jen spent far too long panicking about crashing into the rocks at the side!

Anyways, it was all very exciting but very tiring and when everyone else headed off up the river for a second go, we stayed with Baa Baa, the driver, and watched from the top of the cliff as everyone tackled the rapids again! It's a whole lot more relaxing as a spectator sport! And Jen is still aching 3 days later from gripping the board for dear life!!