New Zealand Discoverer
Day Five – 1 March 2012 – Day of Adrenalin OD
Weather: sun and cloud, 13ish
I must have woke up a dozen times, every half hour until 7 am came. And I got to cheat a little with the 20 minutes free on the internet. I have my smart phone and since they don’t ask for a room number, I was able to quickly check my email this morning.
Breakfast was pretty good. A slightly better selection but the OJ didn’t taste real. There was an amazing view from the hotel as it snowed in the mountains last night so they have a nice white cap on them.
I ran into Nellie and she sat with me until the van for the rafting company showed up. I’m the only one going on the rafting this morning. The van drove us to the company office where I paid for the morning ($195) and got a quick safety lesson. I asked if I could bring my waterproof camera and she said that I’d have two hands on the paddles at all times.
My mind was saying there would have to be quiet spots, but silly me didn’t take it.
<slapping wrist>
Another van took us up to the base camp at Arthur’s Point on the Shotover River. It’s where the Shotover jetboat goes from as well. There were 24 of us altogether. Some opted to take a helicopter into the start point (didn’t realize that was an option!). The crew gave us a brief lesson on how to get into a wet suit and started passing out the body part of the suit.
They suggested we go to the bathroom now.
Boy, am I glad I didn’t have a morning tea!
We went down into the change room and I hauled on my wonderful new tankini. It fit fine under the wetsuit. Once I had that on with the booties, I went outside where I was given a wetsuit jacket, a life jacket, a pullover jacket and a helmet.
They loaded us up into the van for the 40 minute drive to the start point on the river. One of the other women in the van noted that the drive in is an experience by itself.
Ironically enough, the drive in was into Skipper’s Canyon. LOL. I just saved a few bucks on that tour. (I got these next few photos from a tourmate who took that tour and got the photos of our group rafting).
The scenery is amazing. Something right out of Lord of the Rings.
And yes, I kicked myself for leaving the camera behind.
The road really is an experience by itself. It’s cut into the side of the hills and winds and winds and winds around and around.
f you’ve seen Ice Road Truckers: Andes Edition and caught the episodes on the Bolivian Death Road then you know what I’m talking about.
As we drive, one of the guides talks a bit about what to expect then points over the hill and says “a couple of our vans are down there.”
As we approached the start area, we went along a straight stretch with a dropoff of a thousand feet outside my window. The guide, standing by the door in front of me opens up the door and there was nothing outside the door except the drop. Then we came across a turn where the driver said the front wheel would actually hang off the edge because the turn is so tight, he can’t make it pulling the trailer full of rafts without going off a bit.
It’s all a matter of maintaining speed, he says.
Yeah. Right.
We get down to the start point and the guys offload the four rafts – six people per raft. Perfect.
One of the guides hands out the paddles, asking if we want a right-handed or left-handed one.
I’ve heard that one before.
One of the guides, named Chief (and he looks the part), gives us a basic safety lesson and then the photographer does his thing.
I don’t even want to know what that is going to cost.
So we get divided down into our groups of six and our guide is Nolan. He’s been doing this for nine years. Imagine that job – rafting down a river twice a day. We lug the raft into the water and hop aboard. I’m in the back with Nolan behind me. We start floating down the river and I look up to see everyone on my tour taking pictures of us.
LOL. Guess I’ll get a nice cheap photo after all.
I waved like crazy. Not sure if they saw me, but I know they were all snapping away.
As we float away, Nolan starts giving us paddle instructions. We’re not to push off the rocks with the paddle but to hold it straight up instead. He tells us how to get down, hold on, shift right or left and paddle backwards.
The first few rapids are nothing too much and Nolan is impressed with our paddling. Both sides manage to keep it in rhythm. The views are spectacular and there are goats on the shore. We don’t have to paddle a lot – two or three strokes at a time – with a little more in the heavier rapids.
None of it was anything that anyone is half decent shape can’t handle. Certainly less tame than the rope swinging that they were doing over the river. (One guy swung right above us!). The first rapid is called Rock Garden and Nolan says they can get stuck on the rock but the rain last night might have added enough water to miss it. The rapid required that Nolan head straight for a rock wall and he told us to trust him on any moves his makes even if it seems just a tad suicidal.
He knows the currents. I’m not going to debate him.
After Rock Garden, Nolan gives us more instructions and tells us the next section is called Mother.
Yeah. You know where this is going.
It’s comprised of six separate rapids that a kayaker might notice, but in the raft they tend to run together. He said with the rain, the grade 4 rapid called Aftershock might be closer to a five. After that one is Squeeze, Anvil, Toilet, Oh Sh*t and Pinball.
Names are easy to come up with along this stretch. (Reminds me of a ski run at Marble Mountain in Newfoundland called OMJ….Oh me Jesus!)
Well, we got wet. There’s no worry about falling off the raft. I had my feet stuck under the seat in front of me and they wedge in pretty good. We had to “get down” once and “hold on” a few times, but it was a hoot!
It took about 90 minutes to get to the end where the rafting ends with “The Tunnel” and “Cascade.” Each require their own instruction since the tunnel is fairly narrow and Cascade is quite the violent drop. The tunnel was built by gold miners to divert the water and cost eighty thousand pounds and took 9 months to build, but they only managed to haul fifty thousand pounds worth of gold out of the area. For the tunnel, we had to get down and pull our paddles in.
For Cascade, we had to get down, put the paddles to the side of the raft and look away from the person next to us.
Why you ask?
Cause it’s such a violent drop that rafters have hit heads and broken noses, jaws and teeth against the helmets. By looking away, we’d just hit helmets.
Or that is the theory.
We went through the tunnel, with Nolan using the guy up front to keep the raft pointed toward the distant point of light. It’s a long, jagged interior tunnel and as we exit, we have a few seconds to move to our Cascade position and WHOMP! We drop like a canon ball, hit a rapid, come up and then down and we’re out.
Violent is a good description. Nolan’s biggest concern was that we’d go over sideways and he said that “always” results in a flip, but if it has to happen, that’s the spot. It’s pretty calm after that. We slowly float away from the rapid and watch two more rafts come over. None flip.
We turn the corner and make for the beach below Arthur’s Point. We get out and haul the raft ashore. My feet are so cold, I can’t even feel the rocks under my feet. They could be razor blades and I wouldn’t have felt them. We load up the rafts onto their trailers and they drive away.
We have to walk on feet that we can’t feel. Heh.
They lead us up the path to the building where our stuff is and we slowly strip off everything. Luckily, we were all wearing something underneath.
I make a bee-line for the bathroom.
Then I check out the sauna.
I got feeling back in my feet and changed out of my swimsuit.
And it’s not even noon yet!
So, I walk down to the Shotover Jet office and tell them I have a reservation for 1:15 and the girl says, “wanna go now?” and I say “sure.”
This is my Amazing Race moment on this tour.
So, off I go, still chilled to the bone and hop aboard the Shotover Jet. Cameras are not allowed aboard and have to be left in the red trailer in a locker.
They give us a rain jacket and life jacket and the smart ones sit in the middle up front.
Nope. Not me. I’m just not wet enough yet!
The driver gives us some directions and tells us he’ll raise his hands when he’s about to make a spin. He says the course is 7 km long and the boat goes 80 kph. We set off through a gorge where the rocks jut right out next to us and above our heads and the driver just loves to skim past them with inches to spare. As we clear them, he does his first spin…
Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!
What a hoot!! It’s not as violent a turn as you might expect. I’ve been on roller coasters that threw me around more.
Heck, I’ve been on river rafts that threw me around more! Heh.
Going at 80 kph on a 13 degree day can get chilly. Luckily, I had my mitts, but it was pretty cold on my head.
My wet head.
Yeah, when you sit in the back seat, you get the brunt of the water and for some reason, the driver made most of the spins in the direction that got my side soaked.
Woooooohoooooooo!
The driver stopped, turned around and counted to make sure we were all there a couple times.
What a thrill. It was over pretty quick – not much more than 20-30 minutes. I got off and ran into my tourmates up by the building as they were getting off a shuttle. I said Hi and they said “quick, get on,” so I got a ride right back to the hotel.
Where I quickly shed my we clothes and tried to get the tangles out of my hair.
Then it was time for my Retail Therapy.
I walked downtown from the hotel (10 minute walk down, 20 minutes back – only cause there’s a pretty steep hill in between) and went to McDonald’s for lunch. I felt like I needed a drink just to bring me back down to earth.
I spent about two hours walking around the downtown checking out the shops and the waterfront.
When the fog would clear from the peaks, the view was amazing.
I came up to one intersection where all these people were taking pictures and I looked up to see the Remarkable range all clear of fog and in bright sun. Gorgeous!!
I checked with the rafting company for my pic but they hadn’t been printed yet and wouldn’t be available until after 5:30 but I’ll be at dinner by then, so I decided not to fork out the $50 needed to get them mailed to me ($45 for the pics and $5 for the mailing). I know I’ll get pics from my tourmates.
Or I could just haul one off the internet. When you’re surrounded by white water, no one would ever know it wasn’t me. Heh.
Back at the hotel at 4 and the day is still not done!
At 5:30, we left for the dinner. We had to take a coal burning steam ship across the lake to the station.
It was founded when two guys flipped a coin over which side of the lake to claim and the guy that got Walter’s Peak wasn’t able to make a go of it, but some sheep remain. The guy that got Queenstown laughed all the way to the bank.
We were able to go down into the engine room of the ship to watch the crew shovel coal into the burners. This ship was built the same time as the Titanic and launched the week it sank.
That instills confidence.
So, that’ll be 100 years next month.
It was a smooth crossing and a bit smokey inside as you can also view the engine room from the deck we were sitting on (inside). We arrived at the dock at 6:45 and walked up to the dining area – a pretty house with an immaculately cared for garden.
Dinner was buffet style and not too bad. The Skyline was a better buffet but the desserts were just as good. A very nice set up inside.
At eight, we walked up to the demonstration area where the farmer pointed to a group of 7 sheep cuddled together at the far side of the fenced off area. They know what’s coming.
The farmer released the dog and sent him to round up the sheep and the dog takes the long way around. He wants to make sure he gets them all so he’ll make a large circuit which looked funny with 7 shaking sheep cuddled together at the far side. The dog disappears into the woods above the sheep and after a few seconds, the farmer wonders if the dog is taking a tea break.
Only I didn’t hear tea. Or maybe I did.
So he whistles out and the sheep start coming on their own. You think they’ve done this before?
The dog, fearing his job might be in jeopardy, comes tearing out of the woods after the sheep and brings them into the corral next to us. The farmer sends the sheep out again and the dog is a little more cooperative.
It needs the job for gushy food and T-bones.
After the demonstration, the farmer turned us around to face the shearing site. In the back, three or four sheep are behind a fence, staring out at us with wide eyes.
They know what’s coming too.
So, the farmer goes in and wrestles a huge sheep onto its back and pulls it out to the platform. The farmer said he had had people ask him how the sheep “feel” about the shearing.
Seriously. Dudes. It’s a sheep.
He said there was an Australian study on the subject which determined, after millions of dollars, that after shearing, the sheep had a more positive outlook on life.
Seriously. Dude. It’s a sheep.
Anyway, the farmer wrestles the guy to his back (I’m only assuming it’s a guy at this point. After the shearing, it’s obviously not…either that, or his “oysters” were shipped back to Hokitaka for the Wild Food Fair).
The farmer takes about five minutes to shear the sheep. He said that professionals can do it in less than a minute. He showed us the old type of shears (like huge scissors) and said one guy sheared 321 sheep in an 8 hour period. The record stands today and even with electric clippers, that’s a hard number to beat.
He stood the sheep up when it was done and someone asked if the sheep gets cold.
Seriously. Dude. It’s a sheep.
I took 4 videos that cover the whole shearing process here, here, here and here. Sorry, no sub-titles…for the sheep or the farmer.
Then the farmer pointed to the shop. But we only had 10 minutes to catch the ship back and if we missed that one, we were stuck for the night on a shore populated only by sheep.
Well, we’d be warm.
The trip back was a little more smokey than the trip to the station. I could feel it in my throat and an asthmatic with us could feel it too.
But it was like 8 degrees outside.
And to think I almost didn’t bring my mitts with me.
It was after 10 pm by the time we got back and I checked my email and got only 4 minutes out of 20. The clerk said I could come back after midnight.
Yeah. Like that’s gonna happen.
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…
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