yeah i think i shall get one when i finnish noble house and my other many books. just got to two fresh ones from a second hand book store.the last in the series by cris clearmont and goege lucas, thorn drumheler(willow) and co. if i remember correctly they were a bit crap, but needs must as the devil drives…that is to say, it might be alright. i like this blog, quite nifty.
right, as i was saying. we met these guys and were picked up buy a very small bus a few minutes later. we omly just managed to wedge ourselves in. the bloke in charge who was called bob, had alreaddy picked up a girl from kiwi expreariance. she was very nice, from holland and called lydia. we made some stops along the way, first to a supermarket to pick up suplies, and then to a liquer store to pick up assentual suplies. i forced myself to get a six pack of speights. and lo, unto the place we went. it was quite a nice cabin thing in the middle of noware, it sleped around forty i believe. we ate some food, played shithead, drunk beer and got to know each other well into the evening. the next morning i decided, evan though i wasn’t hungry that i would have breakfast as i thought it might be a long day. foodstuffs was supplied as part of the price, cornflakes and toast and stuff. after playing cards for a bit, lunch was anounced. at ten thirty! fearly soon after we had choked this down we strapped on some wetsuits, helms and stuff and headed off for the river. we took some pictures then got int the dingy to start our basic training. this involving us leaning some basic comands and to paddle well. it would be a lie to state that we worked together like a well oiled machine, but we were not to bad. the first section was fearly flat then we came to some grade 3 rapids. this is the way it works: hughy (our guide) yells forward and we paddle like crazy, then he yells stop, we stop paddles poised. it starts to get very choppy. left back! LEFT BACK! the left side go into a pack paddling frenzy while the right side forward paddle, and we rotate very quickly. there are waves all over the place and through the spray i can see the accasional jaggeed rock. suddenly hughy shreaks LEAN IN! and we do so with much speed. the raft dives into some sort of trench, then lounches us flying in the air, spray flying. suddenly there is confusion and pannic the rafts is a mass of writhing bodies, a oar connects with my helm quite hard. this large guy to my right has fallen in. hughy tries to grabb him but fails, and he bobs away down stream. FORWARD! HARD! we do so, chasing after the man overbourd as he goes down for the third time. suddenly he is right in front of us and hughy is shreaking for us to backpaddle. we try but it is to late. he scrabbled at the front of the boat as we ran him over. a few momants past then he poped up on our right, someone lent over and grabbed him and we extracted him from the water. a bit more of frantic peddling and we are in the clear. we sail to a inlet to pause for a bit and have a look at the next section which was grade five. the bloke who fell in declined to acompany us after seeing it. the next sections were fairly simmilar just a lot harder and more fun. at one point we stopped the raft and all leapt into the raging torrant, drifting down stream enjoying the intence cold. it was like leaping into the climping beach with geoff only colder. at another point we stoped of so that we could leap of a 11 metre high cliff. very scary but i did it twice to make up for the fact that i hadn’t done a bungy jump earlier. after the rafting we had a jolly barby collected our stuff and left. i had mislaid my foodbag, which was quite irritating as not only did it have all my cooking stuff, but a really nice bowl i got for abel taxman. about thirty minutes after we set of i remembered were it was along with the realisation that i had left my highly expensive swimming trunks and a really cool towel i had purchased in duneden. i willed away my negertive thoughts and contemplated infinaty. i was the last to be dropped of and as the person before me was dropped of at the yha the bus driver turned around and gave me an odd look. “you have friend at this camping place?” he enquired. “err…no?” i replied. “well are you sure you want to go there? it’s twenty minutes out of town. and there are no shops or anything” hells biscu! that would mean i would have to get a taxi into town to get food or blog. and also i had said i would meet some friends from the rafting at a pub. the driver advised i cut my losses and stay at the yha. i agreed, but what price the fully bookedness of christchurch? well it seemes that was a lie, there was a spare dorm room, and i forked over some more dollors, curseing my bad joss(luck/god/devil) and the loss of $40 to the camping place. i had a fun evening though, i was very, very drunk.
i’ll send pictures later.
see you
julio