It wasn't as early a start as we had thought this morning. Instead of a 7:30am start, our trip wasn't due to begin until 8:30am. Having been introduced to our guide Tate and our fellow tubers, we got kitted out with wetsuits, helmets and life jackets. The wetsuits were in fact optional, but having been in the river water in South Africa before, we considered it a wise move. As it turned out, the water was plenty warm enough that we could have managed without them.
The journey to the river took about 20 minutes and we immediately got the opportunity to leap into the river from one or both of two different height ledges. The smaller being 5m high and the other being 7m high. Debs bravely jumped off the 5m ledge and somehow managed to hurt her ear as she hit the water. Not the best start to what turned out to be a very enjoyable trip. I jumped from both, but certainly wouldn't receive a great deal of style points for my efforts. Seven metres is quite a long way down, especially when you have to jump out to avoid a tree and the rock face!
With the jumps completed the trip settled down to a more leisurely pace. The water level wasn't very high, so it was more of a lazy float, interspersed by some paddling and a few short sections of rapids, which we mostly got stuck in!
Rather than racing down white water we had a lot of fun trying to throw our guide in the water and trying out some leaps into the tubes. One of these leaps ended in an epic fail by me, when my under-rotated somersault left me stuck upside down through the tube! Fortunately only my pride was dented, although aching a little, I did decide to sit the later 8m jump out. We still have to cycle tomorrow and Debs with her injured ear drum, was already one injury too many!
By the time we reached our pick up point we were all fairly tired. We hadn't expected to have to paddle so much. It may have been fun but it certainly wasn't very restful.
Back at the hostel we had our, slightly disappointing, included lunch and then said goodbye to our group. Only one of them, a nice guy from Switzerland called Roger, is staying at our hostel.
After a brief rest, we headed to the village's rubbish supermarket and failed to buy any food. It looked like the Elvis diner was going to be getting our business tonight. This time we were joined by Roger and the cocktails flowed once again. We would have stopped at one drink, but a sudden downpour kept us in the diner. In fact, the same downpour drove us into the bar back at the hostel the as well. A few games of pool with Roger and a small whisky for the road brought the day to a close.
Debs sadly went to bed a little earlier as she had been suffering from bad earache. With luck she will be a bit better tomorrow, or we will have to rethink our plans. The village and area is nice enough, but we really can't do another night in the diner!
Tubing sounds fun! Your jumping looked very brave but sorry to hear that you hurt your ear, Debbie. Hope that it is better soon. Good somersault into the tube, Matt!
ReplyDeleteLove from Mum and Dad xx