We had a really early start this morning to get to Geraldine in time to do our white water rafting. We stopped off briefly at Lake Tekapo and took a photo of the Church of the Good Shepherd, which was the first church built and then we arrived at Geraldine, a small and quite pretty town at 11an. The rafters (9 of us) headed to the rafting office whilst the others walked around the farmers market.

We got picked up by the most casual (and one of the maddest!) men ever who was so laid back he was horizontal. He started making funny faces at us through the window of the minibus for example. He drove us to Rangitata lodge where they have rooms where we'd be staying and also they run the rafting from there also. Whilst we were checking in one of the rafting guides asked if I'd stayed there before and I said no and apparently I looked like one of the people they'd had there before - I joked that I hoped she was nice! After we'd checked into a 10 bed dorm that had triple bunkbeds (I've never seen such things before) we had a lunch that they had put on and whilst we were finishing this off we had a briefing about the rafting, such as what we were going to be wearing, which included a thermal top, fleece, wet suit, jacket and lifejacket.

Putting on a wet suit is neither easy or glamorous but Gemma topped it all when she tried to get into her wetsuit but when it didn't look possible she went out to find the guys to tell them that it didn't fit and when I went out to get my jacket I saw them hoisting her in the air as they tried to get her into it. She is only about 5 foot 2 and very petite and she was being picked up by the suit as they were determined that she was going to fit into it - it was a very funny sight!

Once we were geared up we headed over to the river in a minibus. The four of us were in a raft with Dan who is a trainee driver. a lady called Sabrina and a tiny lady (4ft 9 and weighing only 39kg) who was determined to sit in the front of the boat despite Dave our guide saying that the smallest should go at the back. I'd heard that the people at the front get the most wet and are more likely to fall out so I sat on the second row. Unfortunately I was behind Michelle who I had to keep rythm with when she paddled, but she couldn't really reach the water and she kept taking breaks which made it really difficult for Nasreen and Kristina and I to paddle at the same time. Dave gave us instructions on what to do if the raft flipped over (which I was really hoping wasn't going to happen!) and also told us what to do when he said "Hold on" or "get down" and how to get over to the left or right of the raft if we needed to. After this briefing I wasn't sure if I was feeling more nervous about falling in or remembering what to do so as not to fall in.

We had two grade 2 and two grade 5's to go through and amazingly none of us managed to fall out of the raft. There was one point where Dave had warned us about as he said that we need to paddle really fast and hit it straight on otherwise it would flip us over and after he said that it was a pure miracle that we didn't tip over as we'd not hit with anywhere near enough force. I had felt a lot of water coming in and us being pounded around but I was too busy getting down and screaming to actually see what was going on, but according to Nasreen, Dave had been doing a lot of screaming for us to paddle harder. I had been paddling as hard as I could but with a raft mostly of girls (not to be sexist) we were doomed from the start! Apparently the two in the front would have been tipped right out and would have ended up behind the boat, which I have to admit would have been just a bit amusing...Michelle had been a little bit annoying!

We stopped off at some rocks for us to jump in. I went for the 4 metre jump, which was fine, but I chickened out the 10 metre one. It was quite funny at one of the jump points as you could jump in and then would float along where the boats would be waiting to pick people up. The guides had instructed everyone that you had to swim quite hard to get over. However, there were quite a few Asian people on one raft and maybe it was the language barrier but they forgot to swim and the guide had to throw a rope for them to catch so that they could be brought back to the boat. However, one girl failed to hold onto either of the two ropes thrown to her so she floated off and disappeared behind some rocks. None of the guides seem to be that bothered so eventually our guide took our raft to rescue her. She was just sitting on a rock and then when we got up close she didn't even try to jump in so a few of us had to grab her and launch her in.

The rafting was so much fun and by the end of it I wanted to go again. I even half wanted me or someone else (!) to fall out just for a bit more excitement. When we got back to the lodge we got showered and headed out for the BBQ that they were providing us. We warmed up with a few cups of tea and then watched our photo's from the rafting on the screen. There were quite a few photo's where the raft was completely submerged in water, especially at the point where Dave told us we were going to tip over!

In the lodge was a big lounge area and a big TV and DVD player so we all watched Bruno and then A History of Violence together.