As Alex (another friend) scrambled to pull Mayu out of the icy water, the raft continued its charge past boulders the size of school buses and water that threatened to swallow us all at any moment. “PADDLE! PADDLE! GET HER IN!” Nolan continued to shout as an enormous wall of jagged rocks suddenly came rushing at us. “RIGHT SIDE PADDLE! PADDLE HARD! STOP! BUMP!!!” we bounced forcefully off the wall, spun slightly, then, as if someone had turned off the ride – we calmly floated down the Shotover River.
“They would SO never let us do this in the States!” I announced, grinning ear to ear. Mayu let out a giggle and Alex flashed a brilliant smile. “Hell yeah Mayu! HOW WAS THAT RIDE?!”
The morning hadn’t started off this great...
Severely lacking sleep, I literally rolled out of bed onto the floor flinging my hand across the carpet in search for the piercingly loud alarm blaring from my phone. I had strategically moved it far enough away that I had to get out of bed to reach it. Turning the alarm off, I could hear the patter of rain on the ceiling…this was not the kind of weather to be rafting in. But how could I pass up a freebie?
Running late, I arrived at Queenstown Rafting only to find out there was only one space left on the morning trip. With Mayu, Alex and I adamant about rafting together, the numbers were not in our favor. Slightly annoyed to have gotten up extra early just to be rejected, I settled for Mayu’s suggestion of at least getting a coffee together since we were all already up and in town. As we began walking down the street we suddenly heard Indri (our mountain biking cohort and manager of QT Rafting) shouting, “Hey, there’s only three of you right?” We looked at each other in disbelief before practically running back toward Indri.
Within minutes we found ourselves crammed into a bus meandering up a dangerously steep, curvy, and impossibly small road on my way to raft the white waters of the Shotover River. An hour later, donning full-body wetsuits, wind jackets, helmets, and with Alex and her crew/kayaking skills at the helm, we were on the water attempting to paddle in unison. Mayu, quite content to be sitting next to our guide, sat behind and across from me. I tried not to be annoyed by the English girl in front of me who, whilst barely dipping her paddle in the water, was hitting my paddle and screwing up our otherwise perfect rhythm.
For the first half hour, the small rapids that shot up water into the raft easily impressed me. As Nolan (a fellow American) put us through the paces of important paddling and maneuvering commands he and I discussed the Rose Bowl and how much we both despise the Lakers. Soon enough though, he became serious as he described the upcoming rapids. Already accustomed to tourist operations over-emphasizing and under-performing, I didn’t really take him seriously until we rounded a bend and watched as the raft in front of us disappeared into a massive rapid before suddenly cresting over the top and smashing into a yet another wall of water. My adrenaline pumped and my heart soared…now this is what I called adventure!
Names like Rock Garden, Sharks Fin, Toilet, Pinball, Jaws, and Sequel described the series of rapids we traversed before attacking the exhilarating section of canyon whitewater aptly named Oh Shit! A week’s worth of freakish summer rainstorms had changed Grade 2-3 rapids to 3 and 4+ Grade monsters that had rafters scrambling to stay onboard or flying off into the washing machine cycle of the river.
After a series of exhausting rapids, and in a calm section of the river, Nolan encouraged those of us keen to cool off to jump overboard and enjoy a rapid without the raft. I lunged at Alex, toppling both of us headfirst into the water before we assumed “rapid body position” and floated feet first down the river. Looking back I watched as Nolan frantically struggled to control the raft solo and realized that everyone but Mayu had jumped out! With the raft out of swimming distance, and as the water became swifter and more treacherous, I heard shouts from other raft guides to start swimming toward shore. Within 30 seconds I was completely exhausted and making no progress toward raft nor shore. Watching the others struggle back into whatever raft was nearby, I soon was the last one in the water. Still uncomfortably far away from anything floating, I gave up on swimming and began trying to float as slow as possible. In the midst of all this, I remember thinking, “I am so not ever doing a triathlon! I’m in a lifejacket and I’m still half drowning!”
Eventually Nolan, raft, and crew caught up to me and I was hauled back onboard. Just a few more minutes down the river was our final challenge: a pitch-black 550 ft. long tunnel that channeled water into the colossal Cascade Rapid.
We all crouched inside the raft, paddles tucked in, as Alex – following Nolan’s commands, blindly steered us at the front. As the tunnel opened and we emerged into the daylight the sound of water boomed and Nolan shouted, “Okay, the raft in front of us flipped! Alright, get up! Paddle! Stop! Paddle! Stop!” we quickly approached the drop-point of the Grade 4 rapid and watched as emergency ropes were thrown toward ejected rafters, “Okay, everyone get down!” just as I curled inside the raft we slammed into a rock wall and then pitched steeply down a 12 foot drop-off. Water crashed over us and hurled as upward and over until, quite suddenly, we were back in calm water.
Grinning like idiots, we all high-fived and watched as the rest of the rafts in our group safely, in a rough and tumble manner, made it through.
I can’t wait to do it again!
-Ashley
Fun Fact: The Shotover is the second richest gold-bearing river in the world!
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