I've been out of touch with the modern world for over three weeks now. As such, I haven't been responding to email nor posting on the blog with any frequency. However, I must immediately detail the best day on the river I've ever had.
It began on the Rangitata River last Wednesday. Monday and Tuesday had seen torrential rainfall and the river was well above commercial rafting levels. But our rescue course was still all-go. We started off by rapelling down a steep hill to the side of the river and then swimming across the river while moving downstream nearly a mile. That's how fast the water was moving. Everything we did was pretty safe though - we had safety kayakers, cover rafts, and rope throwers all positioned downstream for us.
After that cold brisk beginning, we carried the rafts up a steep hill on the far side of the river to a pasture where a helicopter came, picked them up and flew them further up the gorge. We followed on foot with the rest of the gear running about 6km. It didn't seem like it was going to be the best day ever when we began....
However, we got to the top and did the coolest activites. We started off by rescuing a "swimmer" trapped against a wall with a tethered swimmer. As the tethered swimmer, you got a rope attached to your back and then you swim in, grab the "swimmer" and then everyone on the shore pulls you back up stream to where they are.
From there, we built a Tyrolean crossing (zipline) over the river and zipped over. Then we re-anchored ourselves and rappelled down a cliff to the water's edge to rescue another "swimmer." Then we jumped into the river and swam to rock in the middle of the river with a deflated raft wrapped around it. One at a time, we each had to use our knife to cut the raft off the rock and rescue the "swimmer" trapped between the raft and the rock. Badass.
From there, we learned how to do helicopter rescues where we approached the helicopter with a stretcher carried by a team of four. The rotor wash was quite powerful.
We also did some first aid, raft guiding, and other more mundane activities. Alas, it was the best day on the river I've EVER had.
Saturday, November 29, 2008
Friday, November 14, 2008
Raft Guide School Week 1
I am presently in Greymouth, New Zealand learning to guide whitewater rafts. Greymouth is in the Grey District, and the city sits where the Grey River meets the ocean on the west coast. It has steep mountains behind it which stops clouds and causes it to rain all the time here. And the skies are always grey - if you can believe that!
The school itself is incredible. I have many years of guiding experience, but I have a lot of bad muscle memory to overcome:) There are 9 people in the class and three instructors. We take three boats everywhere, which means we all get a lot of "time on the paddle." We start at 7am everyday and don't finish until 8pm. I'm very sore but I'm sure I'll be returning super fit.
The other students in the class are great and come from all over. One American (me), one Canadian, one Estonian, one Australian, and five Kiwis. Everyone here wants to be here and is motivated which adds to the program quite a bit.
On the weekends we stay in the school dorms so that's pretty fun. All our roommates are between 16-19 and when we got back last night from a hard first week, we found out one of them was having a birthday party. We thought we wouldn't be able to sleep, but we had people passing out by 8pm. It didn't go for much longer and we had no problem sleeping:) Unfortunately, there is no Internet at the dorms, and the only place to use it is the coin-operated kiosk at the grocery store. I am unable to bring up gmail, so that will have to wait.
During the week we camp out near the rivers we run. Every day we do a different section or a new river. The rivers are all incredible, and it's weird to me that there are no other boaters or commercial crews running on them. We're all by ourselves for the most part and the seclusion is pretty nice. I asked one of the tutors (they're not instructors:) out this and he said that most Kiwis don't have their own kayaks or boats, so the rivers aren't very busy.
I'm out of coins, so I'm off to the pharmacy to buy anti-itch cream (got bit by a lot of sand flies) and then back to the dorms for a nap. I'm exhausted!
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
NZ Holidays
Perin and I enjoyed Halloween here in New Zealand. It is a new holiday here: all the children want to dress up and get candy and many the adults think it's one of the worst American exports of all. They have to find costumes for thier kids and give them a bunch of candy before trying to get them to go to bed.
And last night we went a Guy Fawkes party at a Perin's colleague's house whose husband used to be a diplomat for NZ in the US. So it was a US election/Guy Fawkes party. Nobody at the party was very excited about McCain, but needing Republican representation at the party, the hosts dressed the dog up.
We missed the city fireworks during a heated Trivial Pursuit match. It was a New Zealand edition, so Perin and I were a little out of our league on some of the questions. But Perin had some great saves for us, and we ended up victorious.
One great thing about New Zealand is that they still have some sweet fireworks legally available. And they're cheap! There are no restrictions on when you can set them off, but they are only on sale for three days a year leading up to Guy Fawkes. So I bought a huge box of Roman Candles and we had our own fireworks display in the backyard of the party. If you saw _V for Vendetta_ that's a nice introduction to Guy Fawkes. To really learn more, click here.
And last night we went a Guy Fawkes party at a Perin's colleague's house whose husband used to be a diplomat for NZ in the US. So it was a US election/Guy Fawkes party. Nobody at the party was very excited about McCain, but needing Republican representation at the party, the hosts dressed the dog up.
We missed the city fireworks during a heated Trivial Pursuit match. It was a New Zealand edition, so Perin and I were a little out of our league on some of the questions. But Perin had some great saves for us, and we ended up victorious.
One great thing about New Zealand is that they still have some sweet fireworks legally available. And they're cheap! There are no restrictions on when you can set them off, but they are only on sale for three days a year leading up to Guy Fawkes. So I bought a huge box of Roman Candles and we had our own fireworks display in the backyard of the party. If you saw _V for Vendetta_ that's a nice introduction to Guy Fawkes. To really learn more, click here.
The willpower to finish
So I have been putting off a final post from my trip because I've been procrastinating about putting the pictures together. There are many pictures, so I decided to do them in installments. Here is part 1 (of 2):
We got back to Bangkok okay and then we spent hours trying to find the grilled squid cart. Finally found him and he was all out! So we ordered some from a restaurant near our hotel and it was good. I decided that if we can find super fresh squid, I will cook it!
Andrew and I were both running low on steam. The bike ride from Saigon to the airport was pretty crazy. They wouldn't let us ride our bikes to the international terminal, and when we went to the domestic terminal, they said we had to leave the airport and but our bikes in a taxi and drive up to the terminal. So we pretended like were going to, then rode the wrong way down a one-way street leaving the airport, got into the domestic terminal and walked our bikes to the international terminal. We showed them!
We ran into a jerk American our last night in Saigon (basically, he treated everyone like crap and left us with his bar tab) and all we could talk about our last days was what a jerk he was. Oh, and a dirtbag. He was a dirtbag too and we discussed that as well. He teaches English at some school and pays for Viet hookers when he has stressful weeks. But we didn't know that until late in the night. We met him when we found a place to get cheap beers and he seemed interesting, plus he invited us to get appetizers and a great place he knew. We got our first suspisions of his jerkiness when he thought the price for the appetizers was unfair and crumpled up the receipt (rather large paper) and threw it in the face of the manager! It went downhill from there. Enough about the jerk for now!
We went to Thai kickboxing for my last night here and it was pretty fun. We kept wishing Ben (the jerk) was there so we could practice moves on him. When the action paused, we stepped on cockroaches instead - there were a lot of them and we both got the heebie jeebies feeling like they were crawling all over us. Just writing about it makes me itch all over again LOL. Highlight of the muay thai: one guy got kicked and started vomiting all over the ring. Knockout!
My last day in Bangkok was spent getting everything ready to come home, eating a few last delacacies, and picking up the clothes I had tailored for Perin and myself. I made it home safe and sound and slightly tan.
My suits turned out well because I had several fittings. Perin's clothes turned out nicely as well, but they had to be fitted by a tailor again here. Still, if you need a whole new wardrobe, it's probably better to fly to Bangkok and get everything you want custom made. It's cheaper and you get a trip to Bangkok!
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| SE Asia |
We got back to Bangkok okay and then we spent hours trying to find the grilled squid cart. Finally found him and he was all out! So we ordered some from a restaurant near our hotel and it was good. I decided that if we can find super fresh squid, I will cook it!
Andrew and I were both running low on steam. The bike ride from Saigon to the airport was pretty crazy. They wouldn't let us ride our bikes to the international terminal, and when we went to the domestic terminal, they said we had to leave the airport and but our bikes in a taxi and drive up to the terminal. So we pretended like were going to, then rode the wrong way down a one-way street leaving the airport, got into the domestic terminal and walked our bikes to the international terminal. We showed them!
We ran into a jerk American our last night in Saigon (basically, he treated everyone like crap and left us with his bar tab) and all we could talk about our last days was what a jerk he was. Oh, and a dirtbag. He was a dirtbag too and we discussed that as well. He teaches English at some school and pays for Viet hookers when he has stressful weeks. But we didn't know that until late in the night. We met him when we found a place to get cheap beers and he seemed interesting, plus he invited us to get appetizers and a great place he knew. We got our first suspisions of his jerkiness when he thought the price for the appetizers was unfair and crumpled up the receipt (rather large paper) and threw it in the face of the manager! It went downhill from there. Enough about the jerk for now!
We went to Thai kickboxing for my last night here and it was pretty fun. We kept wishing Ben (the jerk) was there so we could practice moves on him. When the action paused, we stepped on cockroaches instead - there were a lot of them and we both got the heebie jeebies feeling like they were crawling all over us. Just writing about it makes me itch all over again LOL. Highlight of the muay thai: one guy got kicked and started vomiting all over the ring. Knockout!
My last day in Bangkok was spent getting everything ready to come home, eating a few last delacacies, and picking up the clothes I had tailored for Perin and myself. I made it home safe and sound and slightly tan.
My suits turned out well because I had several fittings. Perin's clothes turned out nicely as well, but they had to be fitted by a tailor again here. Still, if you need a whole new wardrobe, it's probably better to fly to Bangkok and get everything you want custom made. It's cheaper and you get a trip to Bangkok!
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