"OH SHIT.... "

Rafting... what can i say!? It was truly epic, epic in the true sense of the word! When we arrived at West Water and we were having our safety briefing I was a little worried to say the least. We were being taught all these commands and warned about possible situations and outcomes. To be honest my biggest fear was having 'summer teeth'... its a rafting thing. Apparently on a regular basis people have their teeth knocked out by people letting go of the T grip of their paddle and when all shit hits the fan it usually ends up straight in someone's mouth. I wasn't sure if i was more worried about having my teeth knocked out or actually knocking someone else's teeth out... all the same i was worried, and so was everyone around me. Luckily no one had any teeth removed.

The trip started off a little random as it had been a while since any of our guides had last rafted this particular river and the water level was much lower than it was previously. A few miles down the river we did a variety of insignificant rapids, at the time everyone thought these should have been the big rapids but because the low water level they just weren't happening. How wrong we all were. This became a reoccur theme to our rafting trip, people were getting a little confused about which rapids were which. So when we thought we'd already done the really gnarly stuff... we hadn't even really started. Thankfully the rapids started off fairly tame (kind of) and got gradually more and more extreme, so at least i felt like i wasn't thrown in totally in the deep end. The last 3 rapids were almost definitely the biggest and most scary rapids on the trip, and without a doubt the most exciting. On the second to last rapid (although at the time we actually thought it was the last rapid) shit totally hit the fan. I think the rapid was called 'sock it to me' (i might be wrong) so we came through the rapid over this enormous wave and everything seemed to be going ok, until the raft starting heading towards this enormous rock which seemed to be the size of a house. This was quickly followed by Ryan (our guide) shouting... 'oh shit.... HIGH SIDE', this is when i realized that there had been a serious fuck up and this could be bad. The next thing i know the raft is rising up the side of the rock on its side and i'm struggling to stay in the boat. With that i grab hold of the first thing i can find which is Ryan and end up pulling him out of the boat with me, eeek. By this point the boat had flipped over and landed on me and everyone else was in the icy waters. I was really worried. I'd lost my paddle and for a few seconds i couldn't see anyone else. Easily some of the scariest moments of my life. Eventually Rob emerged from around the corner of the raft and Ryan and Andrea quickly starting hurling people on top of the raft. At that point everything seemed ok, our whole team were on top of the boat and everyone was safe and unharmed. It became quickly apparent that this wasn't over yet as the upside down raft we were all sat on was floating closer and closer to the next rapid. A rapid that we couldn't afford to go over upside down, there would be pretty much no way we could have done it. Thankfully there were several other rafts around that had made the last rapid which were able to help us and pull us into an eddie (an area of still 'safe' water) just before the next rapid. Without the other rafts who knows what would have happened.

This was such an amazing trip i wouldn't have changed a single moment of it. Not even the flipping of the raft or the horrendous state i got into on the final leg home... which i blame entirely on excess red wine.

So Andrea and Ryan and everyone else who helped to organize this trip, thank you so much for a wicked trip and something i will never ever forget. I'd do it all again tomorrow.

Thank you

xxxx

p.s. Also thanks for saving us.