Duck in Wellies: Rafting at Rangatikei

With an unexpected forecast of sunny weather for the weekend, a few decided to go white-water rafting. Having looked at the rivers near Wellington and decided they were a little tame, we settled on heading to the Rangatikei river, in the centre of the North Island and about 3-4 hours out of Wellington. It ended up being 3 of us going - me, Harry and Joel from my team at work.

This was the first serious trip for my new car - haven't decided on the car's name yet - and it did a good job. The drive up on Sunday morning was pretty straightforward. Wellington is at the very bottom of the North Island and getting to anywhere else is basically a case of working out whether you need to be on Highway 1 or Highway 2 and then how many hours to drive along it for!

Having said this, the last half hour of the drive to the lodge where the rafting company was passed took us down small, windy roads. The wind had been pretty strong and the road was littered with all sorts of bits of branch that had blown off trees and at one spot this entire sapling that forced us to stop and clear the road -

Having made it in one piece, the rafting lodge was a very slick set up. They cater for a mix of backpackers on the Kiwi Experience bus, tourists with more money and the occasional executive retreat. After a safety briefing and kitting us out with some stylish wetsuits and safety gear we were off for the short drive to the start point on the river.

We were the only three booked in for the trip, which meant we got a guide - Sam - and a safety kayaker/photographer - Ants - just looking after us. So the raft wouldn't be too light a backpacker who's been working casually at the lodge for a few weeks - Adam - also came along for the trip.

The conditions on the river were really good, rain over the last couple of weeks meant that the level was just right to be able to run all of the rapids. The set-up was nice as well, starting with a relatively calm stretch with a couple of Grade I and II rapids where we went through the basics of controlling the raft. There were then a couple of Grade III rapids before we got to 'the gorge' with the Grade IV and V rapids. All of this built up nicely and it was made it an adrenaline rush rather than absolute panic of a trip.

It's been years since I last went rafting and I enjoyed it even more than I remember from my last trip. I'm definitely going to try and do some more while I'm out here.

Here's a couple of the photos taken as we went along -