Rafting the Rangitata

On Saturday, Margee and I rafted the Rangitata River with the company Rangitata Rafts. The recreation centre at the university organized the trip. The river had a couple of class V drops. We sat in front because we had experience from doing a trip on the Concord River. The first photo is of the Concord. Maybe, we lied a little about how well we could paddle. The trip went by without incident and was almost sedate. Only one person in our boat swam while we were surfing a wave and I was able to pull her back in.

Riding on the bus back to Christchurch, I thought a lot about a rafting trip I did 20 years ago. One of the three readers of this blog went with me. I hadn't thought about that trip in ages and I was surprised how much I remembered. Our final river back then was the New River Gorge that also had two class V rapids. The rapids on the Rangitata weren't as scary. On the New, I remember hitting a wave on one class V rapid that sent our raft completely vertical. Also, I almost fell out on the other class V rapid.
On another river back then, the Youghiogheny River, the rafting companies would send out scores of boats and none had a guide. It was absolute carnage through the rapids, as many rafts would flip. The guides would stand on the shore and throw ropes to the swimmers. People are much more concerned about safety these days.