Surfs up

River surfing in the Kawarau river.

Today we had a leisure morning. The folks at Mad Dog River surfing recommended we have a big breakfast/lunch, we would need all the energy we could get for the surfing.

Bob fired up the grill for hot dogs. All four of us left the condo at the same time. Bob and I walked down to the meeting point for river surfing, about 30 minutes. Mike and Linda took off in the car for their excursion.

After a 45 minute drive we got our gear for surfing. Full body wetsuit, booties, life jacket and helmet. We got to read comments previous customers had written about surfing. I wasn't nervous until I read the comments. Folks wrote about how hard and tiring it was.

On our way to the entry point we stopped for a quick training session. We had to prove we knew how to swim. I wouldn't call it swimming with all that gear on. We basically had to show that we could scissor kick to turn ourselves around out of an eddy and dunk our heads in the water. Apparently some of the folks that start this adventure don't want to get their hair wet. The training was pretty tiring. This paired with the comments gave me an anxiety attack.

I should mention that the point of our entry into the river was a place we stopped along the road for a photo op, it was beautiful.

The guide said go, we were supposed to stay in a line behind the front guide and in front of the back guide. There were 5 of us. They will take up to 16 at a time. We hit the rapids right off the bat. After lots of bumping and kicking each other we came out the other side. This is a contact sport. It's impossible to stay in a line. The second rapids was a grade 3 on a scale of 1 to 6. Going into the rapids there was someone right next to me. I got dunked. I wasn't sure if I was kicking him, he was kicking me, his board was whacking me or my board was whacking me. When I came out my board was flipped over and upside down. Thank goodness there were only 5 of us.

After the 3 rapids we floated down fast moving quieter waters. A jet ski had been left on the side of the river. The guides pulled two at a time down the river to the end point. Bob and I were last. Just the two of us were floating in the big river.

At the end point they had lots of activities waiting for us. Cliff diving, a rope swing and sliding into the river. Bob jumped off the 7 meter cliff, I chickened out and jumped off the 5 meter cliff.
After each jump/swing/sliding into the river, we had to climb up the rickety ladder on to the rickety plywood platform and do it all over again. OSHA would not approve of the setup. Thank goodness they weren't around because we had a great time.






Mike and Linda went for a drive up to Mt Coronet. This is a popular ski run. They shared the sights with 800 Chinese people. They got an amazing picture of one sheep on a hill. This is an unusual sight, usually there flocks of hundreds of sheep. I think this one was lost.



The condo doesn't have a furnace. Just a few space heaters and a wood fireplace. Apparently most residents here are not Kiwi's. This is a big resort town and the houses were only built for summer. They do get snow, but it's gone the next day.