I'm getting the use of my wrist back so can now type again! The bonus of having typical British summer holiday weather here is that it has filled up the river nicely and that means that the rapids are a bit more lively.
We had all the usual fun of borrowed wetsuits and soggy shoes - you know that icky feeling you get when you go bowling and put on bowling shoes, imagine that but barefoot and wet. For those who haven't done this kind of thing before, the instructors look you over, decide if you've eaten all the pies and they give you the size wetsuit they think will fit you. Believe me, this isn't the only humiliation in store! You then get to go and try to wriggle into them in a tiny room filled with everyone else doing water sports at that time. Because they are wet suits you put them on over your swimmers. In my wisdom, I'd decided that swim goggles might be a better option than contacts as it might get bumpy and I wanted to at least be able to see the shore in order to swim to it. I'm not sure why I told you that - I think it was in case you thought I was just out for a swim and had got my days mixed up. I digress, you kind of get a feeling for how playful / macho the instructors are when they are explaining the kit to you and frankly we were not going to be staying in the boat no matter who we got as a guide. This bunch were out to get us dunked.
We shared our transport to the river with a group of well 'ard hydrospeeders. Hydrospeeding is a bit like rafting except instead of shoes you have flippers and instead of a raft you have a polystyrene tea tray. For the first time that morning it looked like I had taken the sensible option!
Our guide was Matthew and we had a great time with six of us in the boat (five for a lot of the time as various people were dunked, fell in or pulled in by guides from passing rafts!). I think I may have been a bit naive because I started to wonder why Matthew, instead of avoiding the huge great rock in the middle of the river, or taking a path to go around it, was actually getting us to aim for it at speed, and, trusting fools that we were, we just did as we were told. 'Erm isn't that rock getting a bit close? er, shouldn't we go around that? Oh hell, we're on top of the rock, how on earth are we going to get down from here?
The answer, of course how silly of me, was that the following raft was going to pick up speed, aim at us, barge into us at a rate of knots and flip us over and consequently out of our current predicament. It's at this point that you wonder why you have paid to be in the middle of a fast flowing river putting your life in the hands of a bunch of clearly crazy individuals. I needed a cup of tea. Anyway, having had the next raft on my lap for a short period of time (don't sit at the back folks) we were unstuck and luckily still the right way up.
The rest of the trip carried on in a similarly silly fashion, see a rock, try and jump over it or flip over, or send yourself backwards down the next rapid, or bump the next raft etc. Ironically, it was when we were proceeding in a more cautious fashion that I had my accident. We were coming down a fast rapid when the boat kicked up suddenly. I was on my feet at the time because the drop had been so violent and the side of the boat came up and smacked right into my face on the way when I was expecting to drop down back into my seat so I had no time to avoid it. They may be inflatable but when you take one full in the face at speed it hurts like hell. It took ages for my nose to stop bleeding. The guide helpfully suggested that I put my head fully underwater so that the cold would stop it. At that point I was still counting my teeth. I still had half of the trip to do and apparently a bloody nose doesn't merit the safety raft coming over to check I'm ok. In true 'trips but doesn't spill pint' fashion I'd managed to keep hold of my paddle which was a blessing as I didn't fancy doggy paddling the raft against the remaining rapids.
After I'd finished bleeding into the river and listening to contradictory advice 'put your head forward, put it back, put it under the water, pinch the bridge etc.etc.' we carried on and I got pulled into the river anyway by the next raft.
So, having returned to dry land, we then had the fun of getting out of the wetsuits, in the rain, in the car park. This seems to be a spectator sport for the locals as there were picnic tables set up around the tubs where we were to deposit our suits and they were full of people having a beer and staring at us whilst we undressed. Great.
It was fun though. I earned myself a toffee vodka shot for 'most gnarly injury' at the bar that night. What I hadn't realised was because I'm not used to paddling on the left side, I had strained my wrist pretty badly so when it came to cooking for the chalet (it was me and John's turn to cook last night) I couldn't so much as hold a saucepan. Got out of that one nicely eh?
I am barely conscious at the moment having spent too long at the bar and also having spent most of my night trying to sleep with a wine cooler strapped to my wrist.
Horse riding today. :o)
Elsie
