White water rafting weekend
Man, what a weekend!! I’m still on high!! We went rafting in Mpumelanga (South Africa), close to Hazyview. We left around 4pm on Friday in my friends new Subaru Forester - a really brilliant car if you’re going to do some moderate off-roading. We arrived at the campsite at around 7pm, with just enough sunlight to get the tents up. Some of our friends were already there and the camp fire was well on its way. By the time everyone arrived (16 in total!!) we started the barbecue, or “braai” as it’s called down here. I went to bed after dinner, a few cold ones and a lot of laughs… some of my friends should rather have been stand-up comedians.
The following morning, I got up before the rest of the bunch and had a great run up the river, through the forests. After a very refreshing and icy shower (boiler in the men’s room wasn’t working), we had breakfast and headed down to the event organizer’s offices to gear up.
We got all the necessary safety gear and unnecessary safety speeches before hitting the water around 9:30. We were in two-man rafts, so you had a lot more control and the rapids were much more exciting than with the six-man version. Unfortunately, the roughest rapid was a level 3 (they go up to 5), but it was still a lot of fun. We stopped half way for some snacks. There was also a rapid nearby, which you could go down without a raft. You get a bit of a bump on your bum, but nothing serious. Pretty cool.
The entire trip was about 2:30 hours long, including the 30mins break. I would highly recommend this activity. It is good exercise and a lot of fun.
The rest of the day was quite laid-back. We went to a local brewery to watch the rugby - our equivalent of American football. It was the first game of the series, which includes teams from Oz and New Zealand. My team won against another local team - Cape Town based. After the game we had dinner at the very impressive Casa do Sol. They served a mouth watering buffet and I sure got my money’s worth!
The next day we had a quick french toast breakfast at the camp site, packed up and headed home. We stopped at a number of places along the way. One of which was the Lowveld botanical gardens in Nelspruit. It isn’t really your average botanical garden. There is a huge river with a series of cascades and quite an extensive hiking trail. We hiked through the gardens for an hour or so, and headed home.
I loved this weekend! It matched all my requirements for a perfect break-away. I surely won’t forget this one.
Logbook Activity
- Type: Other
- Date: 02/16/2008
- Time: 09:30:00
- Total Time: 2:00:00.00
- Calories: 500
Filed under: White Water |
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