River Wild

And now to continue our backtracking documentation...

After sleeping like LOGS on Saturday night, we woke up Sunday morning (Dec 21st) eager to begin our extreme sport experiences... jet boating and white water rafting!

The jet boat was CRAZY. And also insanely delightful. My teeth were clenched for the first few minutes because the driver scared the living daylights out of me, but I soon grew to trust his maniac skills. He sped through tiny little crevices and intentionally AIMED for the rocks. Had we been like a foot taller, I swear our heads would've been scraping against the rock wall.

The guide would circle his finger in the air like this to signal a pending 360.

Julie Anne got some mid-360 action documented.

WEEEEEEEE. Here's the view for part of the wild ride:

These jetboats were created by the crazy kiwis. They are flat bottomed and can be used on as little as 3 inches of water. We were basically white water rafting on a speed boat going 80 kms/hour with cliff walls on either side. Very extreme. Very Fun.

Right from our wicked awesome jet boating adventure, we received our white water rafting gear and were herded on to a bus that would take us to our starting point.

The bus drove on a tiny road LITERALLY on the edge of a cliff.

It got a little awkward when it came to passing another large vehicle.

When we arrived at the starting point, we geared up and received instructions. Then we hopped in our raft with our CANADIAN guide and 3 random Swedes.

(Let's just pretend that the Swedish blonde girl in the middle is me.)

We went through some pretty intense rapids, but no one was (unintentionally) thrown from the boat. Lowell and Erin took the opportunity to jump out and swim during the calm parts, but I didn’t feel so inclined because I was wet enough from taking the brunt of every single wave that came our way (which was super fun by the way). Plus, I didn’t know if I could pull myself back in, and the Swede who was in the position to assist me had a dislocated shoulder. Wouldn’t want to be the one responsible for COMPLETELY pulling it out of socket!

Anyhoo, the rafting was very pretty and very fun.

We were EXHAUSTED on Sunday night, and slept like babies even though we downed copious amounts of chocolate directly before bed.

Good thing we slept so well because we continued our crazy extreme sport adventures on Monday. Ba-ba-bummmmm (and that be the nail biting cliff hanger...)