Sledging & Springs

We woke up to Uncle Boy’s favourite CD blasting out over the speakers – Abba’s Greatest Hits! We got up and showered, then headed into the dining area for breakfast. We were all still raving about our performances from last night! When we were done, we packed our stuff up and I chatted to Uncle Boy whilst the others finished lading their bits onto the bus. I was amazed to discover he is 73 – still going so strong! He then wanted the group photo – he collects a photo of every group who visits – he thinks he has about 8000 now!

Not far from Uncle Boy’s we stopped at the Big Kiwi; it was large and looked like a kiwi! It really was a super fast stop – Daisy pulled into the carpark, we leapt out and then leapt back on once he had swung the bus around!

Back on track, we continued our way to Rotorua. Ciara and I were not feeling particularly enthused about being thrown into a river at this time in the morning and were beginning to wish we hadn’t booked in for these activities, but the Swedes seemed pretty up for it still – they’re always full of beans though!

Daisy dropped us at the centre and then took everyone else off for a bit of time in Rotorua. The four of us trudged inside and were greeted by a really bouncy ‘extreme sports’ dude – his enthusiasm did not rub off on Ciara or I! We booked in and were told to get into our swimmers and then hang whilst we waited for the others. As we sat waiting, we suddenly became acutely aware of a rather horrible stench – Rotorua is famous for smelling bad, like sulphur, but the Swedes were convinced it was the damp wetsuits; Ciara and I were not so sure. Before long, more people had arrived and we were all ready to get kitted up. It turned out that everyone except me was doing white water rafting – suddenly I got scared! I was assured by the guys that it was all ‘sweet as’, and actually they were right – they explained that there has to be two instructors minimum, which meant I would have both Joel and Dax looking after me in the water, so I felt a bit better as a 2:1 ratio sounded pretty safe to me! I got a wetsuit, booties, jacket, helmet and buoyancy aid on, picked up my fins (which looked just like penguin feet!) and headed to the bus with the others.

On our way to the river, we were given safety briefings – it was quite worrying that there was a group of four Japanese people who did not speak English (literally none) so they had to read the instructions and safety notes from a sheet that had been translated into Japanese. I thought to myself that if I was the person in charge of their boat, I would be really worried! We dropped the rafters off and continued a little way down the road before we got out. Dax, Adrian (the photographer) and I walked with our kit down to the river – about a five minute walk – carrying my river sledge on my head. The sledge itself was a big, plastic thing, about the length of my torso and looked bit like a body board, but thicker and not made of sponge! It has two bar handles down the sides. It was really heavy and I was beginning to panic a bit – how on earth was I going to do this, my arms already hurt?! Adrian offered to carry it for me the last bit of the way, which was good as it gave my arms a rest before I got in the water.

At the river, Joel was waiting for us (having dropped off the bus). Dax explained something to me about the Maori tribe whose patch we were on and how they hold the river sacred. To be honest, Dax had the thickest Kiwi accent I have ever come across, plus he spoke really fast, so I had trouble understanding a lot of what he said. The general gist was that we had to introduce ourselves to the water and ask permission to go into it – he did this by means of a Maori chant. Once that was over, he and Joel explained that I had to climb over the fence and onto the rocks – with the roaring river below!

Nervously, I got up on the fence and climbed down the other side, then down the rocks further to the water’s edge. Up-river a little way from where we stood, I could see a waterfall and the water rushed really fast past the rocks I was standing on, hmmmmm – getting more nervous at this point and thinking that it might not have been the best idea! Joel explained to me how to get on the sledge, then demonstrated – my turn next!

I felt really worried as I stood there on the rock, holding onto the sledge, waiting to launch myself onto the sledge and the water, in a kind of skimming action, like you’d try to skim a stone. Dax encouraged me to go for it and reminded me that I had him and Joel to rescue me if I needed it! So I went for it and only mildly drowned in the process! The water wasn’t as cold as I had thought it would be, but the water had managed to get into my eyes and I was having contact lens issues! I headed with one eye closed over to where Joel was hovering by some rocks and fiddled with my eye until I could see again. Dax then demonstrated two skills I needed to practice – how to handle it if you get knocked off course sideways and what to do if your sledge flips upside down. I figured these sounded like very important things to learn, especially as both Dax and Joel had repeatedly told me that the golden rule of river sledging was ‘never let go of your sledge’. I had a go and actually surprised myself at being able to do it – in fact I did the first skill for real even before I went to try it, as I was knocked sideways by a big wave as I swam from the rock to where Dax was waiting for me.

As we practiced the skills and discussed the next bit of the trip, a big yellow boat flopped down off the side of the waterfall we could see! It was the boat with the Japanese people in it! There was no Ciara or the Swedes in it, so Dax said we’d hang there so I could see my friends come over the waterfall; no sooner had he said that, they did just that – it looked really scary as I saw the boat get to the top of the waterfall, then drop over the side, everyone leant backwards and then the boat was gone! It completely submerged and then popped back up again, a fraction of a second later! I gave the girls a big wave (which was quite difficult when you are relying on your hands to keep you attached to the sledge), then they went past us and further down the river.

Dax explained that we’d next be going down a rapid (not a waterfall!) and told me what to do – I could not understand what on earth he said, as now there was the added problem of the noise from the water roaring around us. I just figured I would watch him and copy what he did and where he went! This plan worked well and as I sploshed down the rapid, I didn’t come off the sledge and only mildly drowned again! Another quick stop to sort out my contact lenses and then I was ready.

It was really nice as the whole way along the river, we’d go down a rapid (each time I would just try to mirror where they went and what they did!) and then pull up and sit for a bit in an ‘eddy’ (quiet bit of water with no current) and Dax and Joel would stop and point stuff out to me or tell me some Maori stories – granted I didn’t always know what they were talking about, but it was sweet nonetheless. It didn’t take me long before I actually realised I was not at all scared and in fact was rather enjoying myself. The river itself twisted this way and that, which meant that at times we had to swim/kick harder against the current to go in the direction we wanted, in order to position ourselves for the next rapid. Dax told me the ‘grade’ of each rapid – I think we went on mostly 2s, 3s and also a 4. I don’t really know what that means in the grand scheme of things, they all seemed pretty much the same to me – wet, watery and splashy.

By the time we got to the end of the rapids, I realised that I had thoroughly enjoyed it! The only thing that wasn’t so great was that my eyes were going crazy from where the water was irritating my contacts, but apart from that, I was feeling pretty awesome! Jax then asked if I wanted to ‘rapid surf’ and proceeded to demonstrate – it looked cool; it’s quite difficult to describe, but what happens is you go down the rapid, then swim back up to the side of it and then catch the wave and swim into it – leaving you hovering on the rapid. I gave it a go and was actually more proficient at it than I’d expected. I stopped swimming, rode the wave and went round again for another try, which again was successful!

All that kicking had left me a bit exhausted, so I said I was done and the three of us swam over to the side, where we hopped out and walked the short distance to the bus. All the rafters were back, so I hopped on the bus and we all chatted about how much fun we’d had. Ciara and I laughed about how much we had not wanted to do it this morning when we’d arrived, but both agreed that we’d had such a cool time so were glad we had indeed done it! It had certainly woken us up!

Back at the centre, we took off our gear, then were horrified to realise there was no shower! We went inside, then Ciara went off again and came back wet – she’d found a hose to at least get a bit of the river water off! I thought this seemed like a marvellous idea (I was really worried about being covered in sulphur-stinking river water!) so went back outside to do the same. I was having trouble getting the hose to work, then I heard Joel calling to me to see if I was ok – I explained what I was trying to do and before I knew it, I was being attacked with hoses! A couple of the instructors had grabbed hoses from where they were washing the kit off and I got full on blasted from two directions! It was very funny as the water was really cold and it made me yelp something chronic! Then I got them to hose my hair as I could feel it was thick with dirty water and they commented that it looked like a Baywatch moment (hardly!?!), so as I walked away, I gave a big, dramatic, Baywatch style flick of my hair and we all fell about laughing! It did the trick though, I certainly didn’t feel as river-watery as before! We finished getting changed and then waited for our lift back to town, chatting to the instructors and watching the Swedes play volleyball.

The guys took us on the bus to Rotorua and we found the others at the Stray bus. We told them all about our adventures and then sat chatting, waiting for everyone else to come back. Then we had to say goodbye to Paul, who was stopping in Rotorua, which was very sad – another of the original gang gone. I think Barry was particularly sad as this meant he was the only guy left (other than Daisy) with a bunch of mad girls!

We carried on our journey to Taupo and Daisy mentioned that although it was a fairly long drive, this was a good bit, as there was a couple of cool places to stop along the way. As we drove along, Rebecca, Daisy and I discussed how most of the bus spent most of their time asleep! We passed the time by playing ‘Eye Spy’ and ‘Animal, Vegetable or Mineral’ which was quite funny – it took them a good hour to guess ‘kettle’!

Our first stop was not far out of Rotorua town centre - some hot mud pools. They are caused by heat from under the earth heating up huge ponds of mud; they must be incredibly hot as the mud bubbles up so vigorously and you can feel the heat coming off of it. The stench was immense and it wasn’t long before we had to give up and go back to the bus!

Once back on board, Daisy told us he was going to take us somewhere really special – a Stray secret spot (ie a place that none of the other tour buses go – we see a lot of the Kiwi and Magic buses which are huge buses, usually around 50 people, so they get in the way of our photos!), although he hadn’t been to this particular spot before. After a bit of a windy drive, we pulled up at the side of the road and he told us to put our togs on.

He then led us through some trees and we came to a little clearing and below us was a pool – a natural hot spring. It wasn’t particularly clear water, but he assured us it was good. Slightly dubiously, we climbed down the bank and stepped into the water – it was warm, like a bath! We instantly decided that we liked it. We all walked a bit further in and then noticed that the ground was no longer stones, but instead the silty stuff you get at the bottom of a river; a bit creepy when walking through with no shoes on (I was very nervous of grass that might be lurking about sneakily under the water, waiting to pounce on me), but the water was warm so it was bearable.

There was an old bloke in the water, he told us which patches of water were which (to the left, cool water and to the right, hot), so we followed his directions and suddenly we all noticed at precisely the same moment that this old dude was in fact as naked as the day he was born –heinous! He was right though – he must come here often as he was incredibly accurate about the temperature of the different areas of the water!

The water was amazingly warm and then we found the hot bits, and they were seriously hot, like “Ouch, I am getting scalded, go back, back, back!” sort of hot. This made for an interesting five minutes where we all shuffled about in the water, finding the spot with the optimum temperature for our personal preference. For me, this involved sitting on a rock (thus avoiding potentially scary silt!) and laying out straight, with my feet in the uber hot bit and my shoulders in the cooler bit. It was absolute bliss, so much so, that it was possible to completely forget the fact that this was actually not a bath. That was until someone found a tiny red wiggly thing and we all freaked out and the old naked dude told us they were just larvae of a fly of sorts and completely harmless. Seeing as he had been right about everything else, we decided to believe him and ignore the wiggly things.

The next interesting thing the exposed old man told us was that the clay on the sides of the banks was really good for the skin – like a face pack. He proceeded to demonstrate by smothering himself in the greenish-white paste! Again, we didn’t doubt that he knew what he was talking about, so most people put it on their faces and looked like they were at the beauty therapist having a facial – I didn’t partake as my skin generally dislikes things like that! We chilled out (well, only when we got too hot; other than that we were beautifully warm!) and chatted, sitting in the water for about half an hour longer, before hopping out and getting back on the bus. We were so pleased and had really enjoyed the experience; Daisy was pleased as he usually takes groups to a different spring, but had wanted to try a new one.

We then suddenly noticed that the water had done something really odd – everyone wearing silver jewellery now appeared to be wearing gold! Somehow something had reacted with the silver and tarnished it a really golden colour! My ring and bracelet looked like 24 carat gold! So Abbey and I sat there rubbing our silver on our jeans and slowly began lifting the tarnish off! It was so strange!

The next stop was a really massive waterfall, called Huka Falls. It looks impressive as it’s a relatively narrow waterfall, which means the water gushes particularly fast over it – 220,000 litres of water per second. That’s a lot of water! As it was only a very quick stop, we leapt straight back on the bus and continued on the last leg of the journey to Taupo.

On arriving at the town, we dropped off those doing the sky diving and I did feel a little jealous as I knew how much fun they were going to have! We waved them off and then Daisy took us to the hostel where we checked in. Rebecca and I booked into a four bed dorm and earmarked the other two beds for Ciara and Charlotte who were skydiving and then promptly collapsed on our beds for a five minute nap.

Clearly we were way more tired than we’d thought as the next thing we knew, we were being woken up by Ciara and Charlotte coming into the room – 3 hours later! This meant we had to leap up and start getting ready for our night out – our official last night out as the Stray bus gang. Rebecca and I then flew out and grabbed a quick bite to eat and I experienced my first lime flavoured milkshake from Maccas – odd, very odd!

Back at the hostel, we joined the others in the bar and our end-of-trip night out started to get underway. We talked about all the cool things we’d done and all the funny things that had happened. The gals got me drinking drinks involving caffeine and very soon I was entertaining everyone once again with my super-fast talking and peculiar behaviour, but it was all good! We then became aware that the bar was closing around us – it was 10pm after all; incredibly late for NZ! Thankfully, Daisy knew a bar that would be open later called Mulligans (surprise surprise an Irish pub!), so we headed there and enjoyed the rest of the evening being merry and making the most of our last night together. It was ace, if a little sad – with the knowledge that our gang was going to be separated, nevertheless we partied on and enjoyed every moment!