The next day we drove for about an hour out of Taupo to the Rangataiki river - over towards Rotorua.
When we got there, we unloaded all the gear, and found this:
And this:
It looked like we were going to be pushed a bit harder today!
The first challenge was to get the kayaks down from the road to the river (without going over the waterfall that is). We used ropes to lower them down a dam.
Once down, we all assembled and carefully launched our boats into the calm water to the side of the dam.
Sam thought he'd show us an alternative route:
Made it!
Once in the water, we got together for a little pep-talk and instruction
Then we were off down the river. We went through lots of rapids - they seemed big to us (and much bigger than yesterday) but I guess to the instructors it was all very easy still. All of us tipped over at least once, almost everybody swam out (rather than being flipped back upright by the instructor). I tipped 3 times, and swam on 2 of those. The water was cold - so I was glad I had a full wetsuit on.
There aren't many pictures of the exciting bits - because we were too busy!
Taking a breather in an eddy (probably waiting for someone to get back into their kayak).
Jules showing us how to surf in a standing wave. Unfortunately, it was just too small and she couldn't stay on it.
Rafting together for a rough bit (the people on the ends got slammed into the walls occasionally, but those in the middle were OK)
Waiting on the bank for people to come down a bigger rapid.
Smiles all-round at the end of the day.
Is that all? Can we do more???
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