After a great weekend with the Colonel and Yo here in Christchurch (barbie + booze, farmers' market, England vs NZ ODI, curry, hill walking and fush n chups on the beach), time to cool off with a day's whitewater rafting. Rangitata Rafts is a couple of hours drive south, then inland towards the Main Dividing Range (look here). Stunning scenery as always - lots of this was used in Lord of the Rings. Rocked up to the campsite just before sunset, Colonel getting the barbie on the go. Awesome selection of meat, salad, breads and booze. All eaten in front of the hungry backpackers and their pot noodles 
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Bacon
Now, I'd just like to clear up this damn bacon situation once and for all. On Saturday morning we purchased some rather good bacon from the farmers' market, all of which was divided out equally. Yes, there was plenty to go around. Yes, I got my fair share. Some new evidence was however brought to the table about that bacon incident - it seems that Mr King had another packet in his eskie all the time 
. Whatever, anyway, now that we've all had our fair share we've agreed to close the matter once and for all.
GnarlyRafters
As always, Alan Davis popped round for breakfast, wish he wouldn't wake us up so early. Didn't get cracking (plenty of crack being sold) until around 11am though; after a quick early lunch, on with the briefing. Getting into the wetsuits was a bit of a mish, involving Sloth doing some sort of star jump while the Colonel held the sides. Drive up to the start point was stunning, got into our group with Ranna as guide. First 30 mins or so was safety briefing (they're big on that) and a couple of Grade 2 rapids. Surprisingly for summer, the river was pretty high at 135 cumecs. I think their cut-off level is 150 and they'd not been able to be out for a couple of days. Seeing as it's mountain / glacial run-off, yes it's damn cold!
Right then, now then, on with bigger and bigger rapids, stopping before each Grade 5 to check it out. I think the photos explain it better than words. Awesome awesome awesome! How shocked do I look in some of those?!?!
Jump Rock
Further downstream there's a 6 metre and a 10 metre rock you can jump off. Sloth straight in for the smaller one, but no chance of getting me on the 10 metre job - just look at the face on one of the girls in our group who did it!!
After 2.5 hours on the river, it was back to the lodge for hot showers and a barbie. Rangitata Rafts - highly recommended, love their work. Team Roblanda then headed inland towards Fairlie / Tekapo while we went back to ChCh (stopped off to check out some HUGE Totara trees). That'll do for a day off work then.
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