Rangitata Rafts is about 200 km from the place where we are staying, one of the reasons to be willing to drive 400km in the day to raft was it would also give us opportunity to check out this part of the country. Our itinerary took us from Auckland directly into Queenstown. How ever the better option to see the south island, is to do a round trip from Christchurch to the west coast, then to Queenstown, then to Mt cook and back to Christchurch. Because we travelled directly to Queenstown, we were stuck, with Mt Cook on one side and the west coast on the other. This drive to Rangitata Rafts would take us on the route which wasn't in our itinerary.
The previous day we thought Mt Cook looked beautiful, we had no idea what lay ahead today. We were like 2 children who had just been given a surprise gift. We were even finding that the sky has 2 different shades of blue. Rashmi felt that Mt Cook was the most beautiful place we had visited in NZ. The drive till we had Mt cook in our sights was awesome, it was like this big panoramic canvas km after km.
Rangitata Rafts
You drive upto Geraldine and then you take a detour into the Peel forest to get to this place. This place is quite remote, and some distance before you get to the office of Rangitata Rafts, the road gives way to a gravel track. Once we get there, we get briefed and then packed into 2 buses to travel to the start of the rafting activity, this is about 25 min bus ride. We are 26 people, and we are split into 4 different rafts. Our Guide Cam P, as he was called, gets started. We go through the drill ad the basics and then it is time for us to attack the rapids. We stay on the water for about 3 hours, we raft through about 2 class 5 rapids, no accidents and we are all fine. The first rapid we went through, when Cam asked us to duck, I was a bit slow and I thought I was going to land in the river, held on and survived, from then no more mistakes, you paddle and quickly hold on to your life line. Closer to the end there is this spot where you are encouraged to jump into the river, there are 2 heights, 4m and 10m, I did the 4m jump no problem, but couldnt get my self to jump from the 10m. When the other were jumping of the 10m ledge I was gasping for breath!!
It was over too soon, I wanted it to last longer, but I believe we rafted for 16 km, did not feel that way at all. From one of the other boats, we had a girl fall off, and broke her paddle. I think the spotter in the kayak probably has the best job, he gets to feel the action really up close, there are fast rapids where he enters them in reverse, I guess some sort of technique.
For the photo session at the end of this sequence of photos, they reduce the air in the raft for effect and then take us to this rapid, Rashmi was asked to go in front. During this session one of the other rafts overturned. When you are in the rafts, you are happy that your raft did not go through any misadventure, sitting her writing this up, I am wondering may be an accident or two, etches the experience in your memory for longer and stronger, because you actually get to drink some water in that case.
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