And the SuperWus Award goes to...
ME!!!
River surfing.
It would be fun if I knew what I was doing (i.e. if they’d spent a little more time explaining how to do the things they wanted us to do instead of just the what to do). I’d never been in any kind of river before. They said I was doing well-they only had to steer me a couple times. (The second time through was a different story. More on that later.) See, we went down three rapids, a total of 6km; the rapids were two to three on the rapid scale (one being easiest, six being hardest). That’s a long way. The river is fast-moving, and it took us probably 30 to 45 minutes to get through them. I felt like I was gonna die the whole time. I had so many things working against me: I can’t open my eyes underwater; I can’t open my eyes right after being underwater (takes a little time); and I can’t hear people near me (the guides shouting instructions) with a lot of background noise (the river). If ya can’t see, ya can’t figure out where you’re going, what direction you’re pointing, what the guides are saying/motioning, or whether you can safely breathe in (i.e. whether you can see if there’s another giant wave coming up). So that lead to a lot of panic on my part, which just makes it worse since I’m breathing a whole lot more often than normal, which means breathing more water.
The first rapid was the tough one (called the Elevator to Hell, I think). I kept breathing at the wrong times, so I came out coughing and sputtering and unable to see. Somewhere in there, I ended up too far to the right and went under for a few seconds (that’s the elevator part) before popping back up. Oddly, I didn’t panic all that much while under; they said we may end up underwater for a while, but we’d eventually pop out. (Plus, I’d just taken a nice, big breath.) The rest of the rapids were panic-inducing, but not as bad as the first one. The second rapid was the Roller Coaster (lots of ups and downs), and the last one was Dead Cow (the first people to go down that rapid found a dead cow wrapped around one of the big rocks underwater).
One thing I ended up really good at was going faster than everyone else. I kept getting ahead of the front guide, but I couldn’t figure out how to slow down or even why I was going faster than everyone else! There was a Scottish guy with us, and he kept getting ahead too. We both went into the Roller Coaster first, both of us loudly proclaiming, “I don’t want to go first!!! AAAAH!”
When we finished the first trip through, we rested a while. Well, “resting” was pretty much just for me. Everyone else went up to a rock ledge and jumped off into the river. No way was I doing that. So when that was done, we went down the river a little farther and got out. They drove us 600m farther upstream than where we started and set off to do the whole thing again. My arms were spent, though. I thought maybe I could do it again, but I felt like I had been hanging upside-down from a climbing wall for 30 to 45 minutes. I could barely grip the board, and I barely kept the board under me the first time through! I tried, but the new rapids/waves connected with the Elevator to Hell, and I was pretty much done. I was having all kinds of trouble, and when I saw the huge set of waves ahead, I found one of our guides nearby and went, “Help!” He came over and grabbed onto my board. We went everywhere through those waves, and I breathed in one of them. And the next while trying to recover from the first. And the one after that whipped us around in a circle. He fell off his board; I don’t know how I stayed on mine. All I know is that was full of water and barely able to stay afloat. We went off to the side, and I kinda recovered. He asked if I was okay, and I said I didn’t think I had the strength to continue down. He said the rapids were easier after that one (I had forgotten that), but I decided to stop. I was too freaked out at that point, and I didn’t wand them to have to baby sit me all the way down. (Turns out they did that for Lucy almost the whole first time through, but I didn’t know that.) So I got out. I really wanted to keep going, but I hadn’t stopped shaking from the first time through, and the Elevator to Hell just didn’t help things. So yeah. I was the Group Wus. Group Wussy Woman. Go me.
River water was still coming out of my nose up to 30 minutes after I got out. O.o
Oh, well. I went all the way through once, and if I had prescription goggles, I’d be more than happy to do it all again. I think it would also be a ton easier if I knew what to do when instead of straining to hear commands from the guides…or relying on the “What’s everyone else doing?” approach.
Anyway, I’d still recommend it to anyone else who wants to try it. It’s definitely a thrill. Too much for me, but a thrill nonetheless. And fun. Mostly.
Oh, and I paid for the CD with pictures of us all. Not many of me, but there’s one good one: my eyes are tightly closed, and I look like I’m freaked out and gasping for air. Definitely representative of me while on the river.
---
Yesterday, on the other hand, was nice and calm…though kinda long. I didn’t realize the bus ride to Milford Sound was going to be four hours each way. Ooops. I figured it would be two hours at the most. Of course, on the way back, Lucy tells me she doesn’t do well on buses anyway. Gah! I wish I would’ve known that! I felt terrible for dragging her all the way out there! Especially when she said she spent almost the entire bus trip (both ways) trying not to puke, and on the boat, she mostly stayed inside curled up on one of the booths! I guess I thought “you don’t have to do everything I do if you don’t feel like it” was implicit. So I mess up again.
Anyway, we went on a 2.5-hour cruise of the fiord (nope, it’s not a real sound). The landscape was beautiful, and though we didn’t get to see any penguins (bummer!), we saw seals and both species of dolphin that sometimes visit the fiord. We got really lucky seeing any dolphins at all, let alone both species. One was bottlenose; the other, I don’t recall what species. I’ll look it up sometime. It was spectacularly windy as well-the “can barely stand up when it gusts” type of wind. O.o It was still beautiful, though.
Oh, and on the way to the fiord, the driver told us all kinds of things about the areas we were seeing, and we even stopped several times along the way to take pictures or walk around. Saw lots of gorgous mountains and waterfalls (the snow is melting off the peaks, and they get six meters of rain a year).
---
We were booked for parasailing at 4:00 pm today. It was too windy, though, so they had to cancel our flight. And since we leave tomorrow, we couldn’t move it to another time. Poo. Oh, well. I think I’ve had enough thrill for today.
Ow.
-
River surfing.
It would be fun if I knew what I was doing (i.e. if they’d spent a little more time explaining how to do the things they wanted us to do instead of just the what to do). I’d never been in any kind of river before. They said I was doing well-they only had to steer me a couple times. (The second time through was a different story. More on that later.) See, we went down three rapids, a total of 6km; the rapids were two to three on the rapid scale (one being easiest, six being hardest). That’s a long way. The river is fast-moving, and it took us probably 30 to 45 minutes to get through them. I felt like I was gonna die the whole time. I had so many things working against me: I can’t open my eyes underwater; I can’t open my eyes right after being underwater (takes a little time); and I can’t hear people near me (the guides shouting instructions) with a lot of background noise (the river). If ya can’t see, ya can’t figure out where you’re going, what direction you’re pointing, what the guides are saying/motioning, or whether you can safely breathe in (i.e. whether you can see if there’s another giant wave coming up). So that lead to a lot of panic on my part, which just makes it worse since I’m breathing a whole lot more often than normal, which means breathing more water.
The first rapid was the tough one (called the Elevator to Hell, I think). I kept breathing at the wrong times, so I came out coughing and sputtering and unable to see. Somewhere in there, I ended up too far to the right and went under for a few seconds (that’s the elevator part) before popping back up. Oddly, I didn’t panic all that much while under; they said we may end up underwater for a while, but we’d eventually pop out. (Plus, I’d just taken a nice, big breath.) The rest of the rapids were panic-inducing, but not as bad as the first one. The second rapid was the Roller Coaster (lots of ups and downs), and the last one was Dead Cow (the first people to go down that rapid found a dead cow wrapped around one of the big rocks underwater).
One thing I ended up really good at was going faster than everyone else. I kept getting ahead of the front guide, but I couldn’t figure out how to slow down or even why I was going faster than everyone else! There was a Scottish guy with us, and he kept getting ahead too. We both went into the Roller Coaster first, both of us loudly proclaiming, “I don’t want to go first!!! AAAAH!”
When we finished the first trip through, we rested a while. Well, “resting” was pretty much just for me. Everyone else went up to a rock ledge and jumped off into the river. No way was I doing that. So when that was done, we went down the river a little farther and got out. They drove us 600m farther upstream than where we started and set off to do the whole thing again. My arms were spent, though. I thought maybe I could do it again, but I felt like I had been hanging upside-down from a climbing wall for 30 to 45 minutes. I could barely grip the board, and I barely kept the board under me the first time through! I tried, but the new rapids/waves connected with the Elevator to Hell, and I was pretty much done. I was having all kinds of trouble, and when I saw the huge set of waves ahead, I found one of our guides nearby and went, “Help!” He came over and grabbed onto my board. We went everywhere through those waves, and I breathed in one of them. And the next while trying to recover from the first. And the one after that whipped us around in a circle. He fell off his board; I don’t know how I stayed on mine. All I know is that was full of water and barely able to stay afloat. We went off to the side, and I kinda recovered. He asked if I was okay, and I said I didn’t think I had the strength to continue down. He said the rapids were easier after that one (I had forgotten that), but I decided to stop. I was too freaked out at that point, and I didn’t wand them to have to baby sit me all the way down. (Turns out they did that for Lucy almost the whole first time through, but I didn’t know that.) So I got out. I really wanted to keep going, but I hadn’t stopped shaking from the first time through, and the Elevator to Hell just didn’t help things. So yeah. I was the Group Wus. Group Wussy Woman. Go me.
River water was still coming out of my nose up to 30 minutes after I got out. O.o
Oh, well. I went all the way through once, and if I had prescription goggles, I’d be more than happy to do it all again. I think it would also be a ton easier if I knew what to do when instead of straining to hear commands from the guides…or relying on the “What’s everyone else doing?” approach.
Anyway, I’d still recommend it to anyone else who wants to try it. It’s definitely a thrill. Too much for me, but a thrill nonetheless. And fun. Mostly.
Oh, and I paid for the CD with pictures of us all. Not many of me, but there’s one good one: my eyes are tightly closed, and I look like I’m freaked out and gasping for air. Definitely representative of me while on the river.
---
Yesterday, on the other hand, was nice and calm…though kinda long. I didn’t realize the bus ride to Milford Sound was going to be four hours each way. Ooops. I figured it would be two hours at the most. Of course, on the way back, Lucy tells me she doesn’t do well on buses anyway. Gah! I wish I would’ve known that! I felt terrible for dragging her all the way out there! Especially when she said she spent almost the entire bus trip (both ways) trying not to puke, and on the boat, she mostly stayed inside curled up on one of the booths! I guess I thought “you don’t have to do everything I do if you don’t feel like it” was implicit. So I mess up again.
Anyway, we went on a 2.5-hour cruise of the fiord (nope, it’s not a real sound). The landscape was beautiful, and though we didn’t get to see any penguins (bummer!), we saw seals and both species of dolphin that sometimes visit the fiord. We got really lucky seeing any dolphins at all, let alone both species. One was bottlenose; the other, I don’t recall what species. I’ll look it up sometime. It was spectacularly windy as well-the “can barely stand up when it gusts” type of wind. O.o It was still beautiful, though.
Oh, and on the way to the fiord, the driver told us all kinds of things about the areas we were seeing, and we even stopped several times along the way to take pictures or walk around. Saw lots of gorgous mountains and waterfalls (the snow is melting off the peaks, and they get six meters of rain a year).
---
We were booked for parasailing at 4:00 pm today. It was too windy, though, so they had to cancel our flight. And since we leave tomorrow, we couldn’t move it to another time. Poo. Oh, well. I think I’ve had enough thrill for today.
Ow.
-