White Water Rafting Experience

Recount on White Water Rafting

As the sun rose, colours of red, pink and purple filled the morning sky. Cabins began to awake and a thick cloud of excitement for the unknown filled the air. I couldn’t contain my excitement because my next activity was none other than the wet and wild adventure of white water rafting.

After a hearty breakfast, we walked for about ten minutes from our camp to The White River Rafting Adventures centre. There Garth, the manager, introduced us to the crew, explained the rules and what to wear.

Screams of laughter echoed through the small changing rooms as we struggled to put on the tight wetsuits and got familiar with our new, rounded, bouncy ball like padding. We all looked like we had gained about ten kilograms and most of us felt like it too. We were all wearing a polar fleece underneath our wetsuits and a big red life jacket on top of that. On our heads we wore a helmet and on our feet a pair of cute little water boots.

“ Right get into the buses”, an instructor yelled over all our chatter and no one could control the exhilaration, the collision of children resulted in a pile up outside the bus’ doors.

The rush out of the bus was much the same as the first. It was so fast that it felt like we were in a fast flowing river already. We were told to line up and boy did that happen quickly, tallest at one end, shortest at the other. “1, 2, 3, 4, 5”, an instructor numbered us off into groups. The instructor in charge of my group was the tall Gordon and in my group were Alex, Josh, Alle, Millan, Mrs.Beattie and my teacher, Mr. Williams.

After carrying the raft down the small hill, the time had finally come! WE WERE RAFTING and I was even more ecstatic because I had the very best seat in the house, the front.

It was time, our first rapid was approaching. It was very shallow so we had to bounce up and down while Gordon pushed. After we made it over we realised that we had masses of paddling ahead of us.

As we heard the next rapid approaching we all paddled as hard as we could. “And Stop”, shouted Gordon. We all obeyed and sat very still, thoughts of anticipation flooding our mind. When suddenly the rapid had us in its grasp. It threw us around and rebounded us up and down like balls. At the front it even hurled bombs of water at us. But we fought back and stabbed it with our paddles. As if at a flick of a switch it’s energy ran out. But our batteries were still fully charged so we eagerly paddled on to meet our next rival.

We battled many more rival rapids and pretty soon we came across another kind of rival, the other mean, keen rafters. As we approached one another world war three broke out. Spears, bombs and bullets of water flew everywhere. When the water hit us it seeped into our clothes as if to symbolize blood. But time and time again this was, unfortunately, not a battle we won. Now we were beginning to wear out.

After our water war we needed to ice our bruises but since we didn’t have any we settled for a swim in the freezing cold water. Even though we did this twice The relaxation didn’t wear off and I would have enjoyed doing this more.

At some point, sadly, our water world had to come to an end and after a few more rapids it did. We lifted up the raft and held it on our heads, using this technique we carried it up the hill and loaded it up onto the trailer. Finally after we got back to the rafting centre we got changed into our clothes and walked back to camp.

I thoroughly enjoyed white water rafting and one day hope to go rafting again on a higher river grade. If you ever get an opportunity to experience rafting I suggest that you don’t think twice and seize it with both hands you’ll never regret it.