*Long post warning!*

Mad.  Dog.  River.  Boarding.

Ever since I saw the PBS “Smart Travels” episode on New Zealand’s South Island, featuring an expose on this awesome activity, I have wanted to go.  As a matter of fact, it was at the top of my list of things to do in New Zealand.  For those of you who understand “riverboarding“; essentially, it is is boogie-boarding down white-water river rapids.

We scheduled to go early in the morning, so we were up at 6:30AM to get ourselves ready and out the door.  We stopped at a cafe to have a hearty breakfast of Eggs Benedict and coffees before showing up for our “appointment” at 7:45AM.  To be honest, we were most concerned about freezing our you-know-whats off.  The early morning temperature was only 9C (or 48F).  I was already cold, and “cold and wet” did not seem appealing at all.  Thankfully, my excitement got the better of me.

The guys at Mad Dog were super-cool and seemed enthusiastic despite the early hour.  There were a two other women from the UK (who work in Dubai) going with us, as well as “Team Denmark” - five young men from Denmark, who barely spoke English and reeked of alcohol.  As I found out later, they had only two hours of sleep.  After signing waivers which said we knew what we were getting ourselves into, we got on a shuttle for the 45-minute drive to where the gear was located.  Members of Team Denmark slept while one of our guides, Jonno, described the safety precautions and various sites we were driving by.  We arrived at an old gold mine, and I suddenly felt like I had been sent back in time about 200 years.  It looked like the Wild West (not the bad Will Smith movie), with old machines rusting on the dry, desert-like ground, small wooden buildings that looked like no one had been in them in ages, and strange desert plants.  To add to the surrealistic scene, a large hawk sat overlooking a chicken coop, whipping the chickens into a clucking frenzy.  Other than the chickens and our group, it was silent.

We were taken to an area where our gear was distributed: full wetsuit and booties, life jacket, helmet, flippers, and boogie board.  It was so cold stripping down to my bathing suit, and the wetsuit was damp!  Brrr!  Not to mention the fact that wetsuits are not easy to put on in the first place…  Thankfully, there were no clouds in the sky, and the sun was getting high enough to peak over the mountains.  Despite the water being only 16C (61F), the unobstructed sun meant I was not going to freeze after all.

We paused for a group photo, got back in the shuttle, and headed to our point of entry in a calm eddy in the river.  We put our flippers on and grabbed our boogie boards, then, we jumped in!  First, the river is fed by the same melting glaciers that make Lake Pukaki so amazingly blue.  Although the water was clean, clear, and crisp, I could see little tiny mineral particles like sparkling specs of glitter that give the water its beautiful color.  With the wetsuit on, the water felt refreshing and nice!  Second, the river has carved a canyon out of the mountains, so we were going to be travelling between six- and ten-story rock walls the whole time. Just a few metres from the shore, the river was already too deep to touch the bottom.

After a few lessons on how to maneuver in the swift-moving river, as well as a few exercises to see if we were all able to complete them (especially for barely-conscious Team Denmark), our guides led us out.  Already, the water was moving us quickly down the river, and we were immediately going into the rapids.  It was hard to stay together, and I soon found myself ahead of everyone, which made me a little nervous.  Jonno later told me it wasn’t a problem since he could just yell to tell me where to position myself in the river instead of using the hand signals he taught us earlier.  I did manage to “pull over” and slow myself down so I stayed with the group.

The river was rough, and it was difficult to stay on the boogie board (especially with the life jacket and all).  Actually, if I had my way, I would have just held on to it with both hands and floated down; it seemed to be easier and more enjoyable.  Anyway, we continued through the rapids, bumping into each other or even scooting right up on top of each other.  Sticking with Rus was nearly impossible through the rapids because the water threw everyone every which way.  It was so fun!  The sun was now over the mountains and beating down on us, and it felt great to be in the water. Our guides were telling us to swim from one side of the river to the other in order to get in the best positions to ride each set of rapids.  With all of the gear and the water moving so fast, it was physically challenging; much more than I expected!  I couldn’t imagine doing it as hungover (or still drunk) as Team Denmark.  At least they had a good rinse and weren’t going to stink up the shuttle on the way back!

After hitting the rest of the rapids (it took about 20 minutes from start to finishing the rapids), the river widened a little and smoothed out (though the current was still strong and swift).  We reverted to relaxation mode for another 20 minutes or so; floating down the river nicely and finally able to catch our breaths!  Think “Lazy River” multiplied by 100.  At that point, with the hot sun and the cool water, I could have stayed in the river all day.  It was glorious!

One of the guides, Brad, got on the jetski that was downstream and rode up the river to give us all rides on the raft attached to the back.  It was essentially a foam float with hose fashioned as handles.  Pulling yourself up onto that thing from the river required a reasonable level of upper-body strength, that’s for sure!  I knew I was going to be sore the next day.

We were towed to the shore line, where we had originally put on our wetsuits, and I thought the fun was over when we were told to take off our flippers and set our boogie boards aside.  Once the group was reunited and had completed these instructions, we climbed up some steep and dangerous steps to the edge of a rock where we were all offered the chance to do “rock jumps”.   Several of us opted to do the 10m (30ft!) jump off of a rock ledge into the river.  I did it, and it was horrible!  I did not like it a bit!  I took a deep breath, and it felt like it took forever to get to the water, so much so, that I wanted to take another breath but was afraid I’d be underwater by the time I took it.  Plus, once I entered the river (unevenly, which made me smack my rear-end and back of my legs pretty hard), without my flippers, I had trouble propelling myself to the side.  I have small feet for my size, so combined with limited arm movement because of the life vest, it was a lot of effort for me just to keep my position.  I was able to finally get myself over to the shore to get my adrenaline and heart rate back under control.  Needless to say, I do not think I will be doing a jump like that again, and I have a lot more respect for the power of rivers!

There was still more!  I went down the big metal slide, like one that used to be used to put silt with no gold back in the river (remember, we were at an old gold mining site).  A hose was set up to lubricate the slide, and participants go down on their boogie boards any way the choose (sitting up facing front or back, laying on your stomach or back, etc.) and end up skipping across the river - fun!  Once stopped, the jetski comes by and gives a tow back to a ladder to climb to reunite with the rest of the group.  Climbing up the ladder from the river repeatedly with a sopping wetsuit and life jacket was its own workout.  Rus said he was going to skip the slide since he got a nose-full of water when he did the rock jump; he changed his mind and went while I was getting towed back.

Last on the list was a rope swing that swings over the river; I did that twice - it was super fun!  At one point, I lost a booty, so a guide had to jetski down a hundred yards or so to pick it up for me; no problem.  The skin on my lower leg above my ankle was exposed to the water and red and cold - thank goodness we were in wetsuits!

Finally, after everyone in our group was finished with all of the activities (and thoroughly worn out), we climbed up the most treacherous pathway ever. I kept thinking, “this is a liability insurance nightmare”!  Shallow, steep, uneven steps with a steel cable as a handrail, ducking under said handrail, water dripping mud on some of the steps…yikes!

Once safely at the top, we got out of our wetsuits (which should be listed as another “activity” for the day) and rinsed off at one of the hot shower heads there.  We dried off and got dressed - and felt about 11kg (25lb) lighter!  It was just after noon, and Rus and I both felt like we had already put in a full day; it made me glad we went in the morning.  Jonno, who was staying and waiting for the next group, guides three trips per day, four days per week.  I do not know how he does it; we were exhausted after just one trip!  We said thanks and were off to the shuttle to go back to Queenstown.

On the way back, we were asking Brad, one of the other guides, all sorts of questions.  Brad, in his late-30s (?) spends the Southern Hemisphere summer in Queenstown guiding riverboarding tours and summers in the Northern Hemisphere in the UK and various other parts of the world guiding kayaking and rafting trips on some of the world’s toughest rivers.  He said some of his favorites were in Turkey and Nepal.  The season is essentially November through March, since it’s too cold outside of those months, even with wetsuits.  I was still reliving how much fun it was, and he told me I should come work for them for a summer (*gears turning in head*).

We dropped off the girls from the UK at Kawarau Bridge bungy jumping (home to the first commercial bungy jump) before continuing on our way.  We looked through the photos that Dave, the photographer, took, and we decided to buy some.  When we got back to base, he ended up giving us all of the photos (probably because it was just easier than sorting through them) on a CD.  We thanked the guys again and promised we would be back!

We stopped by the hotel to change out of our bathing suits and drop off the wet towels.  At this point, we were starving, so we bought fish-n-chips from a chips shack on the street that seemed popular.  We were going to phone Christian to see where he was, but we actually ran right into him on the street - perfect!  He said he had been paragliding all morning.  He has his certification, so he took the gondola up to the top of the mountain where his friend had secured a parachute for him to use.  Then, he spent 90 minutes in the air, up and over Lake Wakatipu, then finally landing.  Cool!  The day could not have been better; the sun was shining, the temperature was about 21C (70F), and the wind was low.

After we ate (it was not that great), Christian said that if we wanted to go wine-tasting, we had better get going.  No need to twist our arms - we went straight to the car and off we went.