Jody’s notes are in this font. My notes are in this font.
We parked at the Rangitata Rafting lodge early in the morning and made breakfast. The bus from Christchurch showed up with the majority of people at 10:30 and we all had an early lunch before getting the speech, getting dressed and sweating our way to the put-in.
Rangitata Rafting Lodge - Caryn coming down the steps
View from Rangitata Rafting Lodge - Morning
Our put-in was in Edoras (Lord of the Rings). So cool!
Where they filmed Edoras - The Rangitata River would be just behind you if you were taking this picture
As I said earlier it seems all raft guide speeches are the same wherever you are. The company I went with, it turns out, used to employ Millsie who worked for Clear Creek for a few years.
Rangitata River - this is like where we put in
The water was creamy blue-green and cold, but not colder than Clear Creek. There were 7 of us in our boat and Yo who was our Japanese guide. Yo brought his sister Meg along. There was also and Irish couple in the front, and a guy from Christchurch and a woman from somewhere. We were not a chatty bunch. Per usual Caryn and I were labeled as trouble and perhaps a bit dotty.
The first big thing was a class V drop. It was a big hole with a huge pushy pillow at the bottom. The trainee boat went through center and popped up on the pillow that slide them far river left. The next class V was longer with a few holes and pumps. At one point we got tossed left and bounced off the left cliff. At the bottom they pulled over and we jumped in and swam around the corner where there were larger cliffs to jump.
No cameras on the trip, just the photos the rafting company took, but its so hard to tell that it was really us, that for $45 we decided to skip it.
View from Rangitata Rafting Lodge - Evening
Oh and there was a baby hedgehog that came out to play that night!
Jo and Baby Hedgehog
Tomorrow… last day of our trip… very sad… last day of 2008… not so sad…
