River Valley

The next day we got up ridiculously early as we needed to be in River Valley for some activities people were booked on to, so we all jumped back on the bus for a few hours. Most of us just catch up on sleep or write our blogs on the bus as there isn't really much to entertain us, apart from the driver occasionally making some funny comments about someone or something. We eventually arrived in River Valley at around 1.30pm and it wasn't what any of us were expecting. So far wherever we have stayed has been in a small town where you can pop out to the local shop to buy stuff, but this was a small wooden cottage in the middle of nowhere secluded from everything. It was located right next to a roaring river with a massive log fire in the middle of the cottage and a dorm that held around 30 people. It was the strangest but most peaceful and beautiful place in the North Island we had been too. Once we were checked in we went straight out the back of the cottage to get geared up for White Water rafting up to grade 5 which can be very dangerous and technical, the highest grade is a 6 but at that level your jumping off waterfalls and that would be suicide for us. So after a quick briefing we jumped in our boats and headed down stream to the first rapid which was relatively easy. As the nose of the boat hit the largish wave it bent the boat pushing Ross Smith off into the white water, we grabbed hold of him but the water was too strong and pulled him under the boat. After 10 seconds of not seeing Ross everyone was getting a bit panicky, and then finally he popped up at the front of the boat laughing. If it was going to be anyone that would happen to it would be Ross Smith, he's so accident prone. So after his little dunk we pulled him back onto the boat and carried on downstream knowing that we had A LOT HARDER rapids to come. The further we got downstream the harder the rapids got, they started off at grade 2 and finished off at grade 5, at one point our boat got beached on 2 rocks and nearly flipped where 2 people had previously drowned as recently as 2007. Scary stuff ayy, but we survived. About three quarters of the way down we stopped off at this 8 meter cliff jump we could do if we were up for it. Obviously the adrenaline junkies Ross Smith and Brad jumped straight off but Ross Matthews needed a bit of encouragement but after seeing his little bro jump he didn't want to be shown up so finally jumped in with a big girly scream lol. He then repeated more times than anyone else because he loved it so much. After another 20mins of paddling we arrived back at our cottage, we washed all the gear and then jumped in a warm shower as the rivers in the North Island are freezing especially this time of year.

After warming up we headed into the main room where the massive log fire was located, the heat of the fire could have easily sent us to sleep after a strenuous few hours on the river. We didn't though because we knew a very special meal was coming up, a typical Sunday roast which was prepared and made for us by the cooks at the cottage. For 7quid you pretty much got the largest and tastiest Sunday roast we had ever had (no offence mums). After filling out we felt like we had food babies and couldn't really move apart from getting up the stairs, putting on a movie for around 10 people on my laptop and lying down on our beds.