Our day started bright and early. We had some serious rafting to get done and we were bubbling with excitement to get this going! (Plus, at this point we hadn’t confirmed anything with the rafting people, so we weren’t really sure what the deal was and thought getting to reception early would guarantee us a place on the river).
We were greeted by a very friendly person at the counter who confirmed that 7 of us were booked in for the rafting. We were told to get swimwear on, a towel handy (which felt very Hitchhikers guide) and to sit in the dining area. We signed our lives away like with any organised fun which alleviates the owners of the responsibilities of our lives. We listened to the safety briefing which explained that all will be done to minimise the risk, but this was risky at the end of day. It felt very Teflon coated but in fairness with nature you can never guarantee anything so it makes sense.
We got all our kit sorted out and headed to the school bus which would take us upriver to our starting location. We were impressed to see this rust bucket make it up the same gravel, mountainous road we went down the day before and this provided us with some comfort that our vans should also be able to navigate the road.
The bus puled in and we were led out of the van. Given lifejackets the whole bus were brought together for group photos and we were split into our respective boats: Katy, Brendan,Rachel and myself in boat A and Annie, Micheal and Jayne in boat 1. Sadly Louise would not be able to join us on this due to her knee, but I assume some peace and quiet from a fully loaded van of 6 adults is a blissful and rare experience that was to be enjoyed too.
We were introduced to Max, our guide for our boat and ultimately the person who I would haunt in the afterlife if he didn’t get us back to camp in one piece. He was an interesting person who kept telling us about the awkward situation he had found himself in. It turned out that one of the other boats had his recent ex on board and that all the other instructors were aware of this too. To make matters worse, she was also doing the rapids with her family on board the boat. As a result he was keen to stay well clear of them for the whole trip. The unfortunate thing was that his nerves about this took hold and he garbled on with laddish jokes for the whole trip. Entertaining at first but by the end it was good to say goodbye.
The rafting itself was a great expeirence. The water levels were lower than normal so each set of rapids had to be investigated first to pin out the optimal path for us to get down. Our paddling navigated us down the rough waters and we managed to bounce our way along the river. The very rift rapid we went down allowed Brendan and myself to get dunked into the river as the boat nosedived into the water.
As we carried on we were given additional orders from Max. This would range from directional paddling instructions to throwing our weight around the boat by diving left or right. This added to the excitement of it as we would be battling ourselves against nature and doing all we could to not get smashed by the rock in our path. We also had great fun soaking boat 1 with our paddles whenever we could (and equally annoyed when the same action was done against us). The instructors seemed to enjoy this and joined in! Hilariously, a random on another boat also thought this was fun and tried to join in but ended up dropping his paddle, much to the destain of his crew!
We navigated the river well and were near the end. On the final rock Max gave a slightly different instruction than normal. This time, instead of leaning towards a rock we were going to lean the other way. I fully expected what was going to happen but carried on with it.
A moment later and we were flipping through the air. Our boat did a 180 degree spin leftwards and we were thrown out of the vessel. The cold river waters were a strong wake to the senses. The life jackets ensured we floated up to the surface and we were told by max (who had quickly spun the boat back over and ensure he was high and dry in said boat) to lie flat to ensure we didn’t get hurt int he low water. This was a good call as just after this I could feel the rocks scraping below my bum!
One the water levels rose again we jumped back in the boat and enjoyed a leisurely float along the river until the River Valley Lodge once again came into view. We had made it back! We brought the boat back to the storage unit and were told to take a warm shower. Didn’t have to tell me twice!
We were ushered into the reception area where we could look at the photos from the rafting experience. They were pretty good photos and we were interested in getting them. However, time for a slight rant first. Let me just get on my horse.
One thing that infuriates me is the additional charge on media taken during fun activities. Whether it is skydiving, scuba diving, bungy jumping, luging or white water rafting, it seems that paying a rather hefty activity fee doesn’t seem to fully cover their operating costs. It seems this way because the photo packs these places offer are always priced at near extortion levels and it anything seems inappropriate! I vow that if I run an activity centre I would try and buck the trend and be the first to include photos at cost rate. In the digital era there is not reason to not do this as photos could easily be sent to recipients wirelessly to mobile devices!
Anyway, Brendan gave a good haggle and we managed to get some discount for getting sets of photos from both boats. They are quite good and I’ll put a moveable gallery below.
It was time for us to leave the River Valley lodge and make our way south again. This time we didn’t have have a destination in mind but would search for campsites as we made our journey. First to go was the big campervan, and we watched as it made steady progress up the hill. Satisfied there was enough of a gap that it was safe for us to climb we started up.
The one things about small engines is that they do not really like climbs. This was a lesson learned both by Katy and myself during a previous travel around the south of France (this involved a 50cc moped and what turned out to be a mountain road). It didn’t take long for our engine to give it all it had but we made no progress. The van struggled to gain any meaningful traction on the gravel surface. This was not good news.
Thankfully I had a plan. I thought that if we put more weight onto the rear axels, where the driving force was coming from (most vehicles are rear wheel drive) then it would translate to better traction and hopefully aid our progress. I jumped into the back of the van and lay as far back as I could whilst holding myself steady. This actually worked and despite being thrown around the back a little bit we were on our way.
The climb was completed and we made our way back around the winding roads that brought us out to the River Valley lodge. Katy mentioned that during the climb the fuel indicator unhelpful read empty but was starting to climb again now. Either way we radioed through to the other van that we should have a fuel stop when we next could, about 35km away according to the sat nav.
We stopped for fuel and the panic was starting to rise. We had a rough direction to go in but we did not have a destination. Campsites that were en route and well places were all booked up. A last minute dash google and I came across a campsite by the name of El Rancho.
Note: Yes, there were several campsites which came on my to call list but the name El Rancho stuck out to me as sounding awesome. I couldn’t help but read the name of the place in the voice of Bender/Jake the dog in my head. Read on to see how my own perception can be slightly off in situations like this.
I called them post haste, if there were any spots left we wanted to make sure we nabbed them.
A very friendly voice informed us that they had one powered and one unpowered space on the site. This suited us fine and we confirmed we will be on the way. We breathed a sigh of relief and made our way down the highway.
We pulled into the campsite in a slightly jolly mood. I was co-piloting for the journey this day and so I treated myself to a “Martin saved the day and got us a place at El Rancho”. We had all the usual pleasantries and paid the campsite bill. After the transaction had been authorised the lovely assistant mentioned we should read all the campsite rules. Down at the bottom of the page read the line:
“14. No alcohol is to be consumed on, or to be inside, campervans on the site”
Ah. A brief look around and suddenly it became clear that there were slightly more crucifixes around the room, and site outside, then is usually found at other campsites. Then on looking at the pictures of the site once again (which were all on google too) it became clear that the nice looking room was in fact a chapel. Turns out we were at a Christian Family retreat campsite. Whoops. Keen to not be instantly kicked we did not declare we had stowaway booze on board. Nor did i say much more in case the beers i recently enjoyed were detected by anyone around.
We snuck back to the vans and parked up. Being resourceful and environtmally conscious, we rinsed out our mcdonalds coffee cups and had some sneaky tipples at hand for our walk out the camp and to a bar in town where rule 14 could not be enforced. However, it did feel somewhat a symptom of alcoholism to be hiding alcohol in what must’ve been very conspicuous coffee cups.
It was during this getting ready to leave campsite period where a gang of campsite yout’s passed by our van. Not overly sure if their conversation was directed our way but one of the older teenagers mentioned how “only old people and creeps go to pub”. I mean sure, I’ve met a fair few creeps in pubs in my time but i found it having a weirdly cultish type feeling when someone decides to brandish something completely when they presumably have never been in one (assuming again that they hit or rule 14).
We walked towards a restaurant we found on google and, on a note of poor planning, didn’t register that it was going to rain about 10 minutes after we set off. The moods were starting to dampen as we were all getting soggy looking for our place to eat.
We finally came to a restaurant and were able to scramble together 8 seats on an outdoor table, 90% of which was covered from the rain. This was less than ideal but at least we had somewhere to sit. We ordered a round of drinks and discovered what was probably the saltiest margarita in the southern hemisphere (if not the world). For some reason the bar tending staff decided that salting the rim of the glass was not sufficient and it tasted like that added a heap into the drink for good measure. It was not good. We returned them to upset glances from the staff but got new ones which were a slight improvement (still with extra salt though, why?).
We ordered several pizzas for the table and they were pretty good. Overall I think the walk in the rain combined with salty drinks put a slight downer on the meal as a whole but we kept high spirited (both in happiness and in alcoholic consumption) and we made the most of our evening. It ended with us walking back into el rancho and to our vans in the quiet of the night. It felt as if we were sneaking back in from a party we shouldn’t have gone to.