New Zealand April 26th-White Water rafting

Two unusual things we saw this morning:
-A man walking through the centre of town in his boots and waders with fishing rod and 2 trout in his basket.
-An old man walking through the centre of town with a large (multi day) backpack on his back balancing a 4.5kg gas cylinder on the top of his backpack.
Unfortunately we didn't have a camera with us at the time.

This is a small and unusual town built on the trout fishing, river and outdoors adventures, geothermal activity, and hydro electricity.

We added to the industry by booking in for one of the local companies (Tongariro River Rafting) to take us on a trip.

We were picked up where we were staying and taken back to their base in town, where we were kitted up with wetsuits,  booties, fleeces, life jackets and helmets ready for the adventure.

Then we were taken out to the start of the trip at the Pouto intake (known as Access 10 by the rafters). This gives a reliable grade 3 rapid, which is not so gentle that is it boring, but easy enough for first timers to handle.

Trev and I both remembered rafting being much tougher last time we tried it (30 years ago) so we are not sure what level we did that time.

We enjoyed rafting  the 55 or so rapids with the 4 nurses from San Francisco and our guide , and relearning how to get down, hold on, paddle and move cross the boat as required. Trev even chose to do a cliff jump part way down the river where it was a bit deeper.

We also stopped along the way to pick up a scientist who had been working, picking up sound recorders. He now has over 300 hours of sound to listen to to try to identify whether there are kiwis in the area.

As with many of our experiences in this area,  the water was breathtakingly clear, and we were able to admire ferny cliffs, mini waterfalls and the endangered blue duck as we rafted along.

We finished up with a bit of a soak in one of the hot pools,  before some hot soup back at the base. Overall a fun afternoon which left us pretty weary.

Hot pool

I think that today was one of the most persuasive arguments for a Go Pro camera. It would have been great to take footage of some of the action to remind us later, but there was no way our camera was coming rafting.