White Water Rafting on the Murray River

Hello All!

Well today has been a thoroughly fantastic day! We had to get up early to meet the guys who were gonna take us rafting, Dizzy and Ben, and they drove us up through the Snowy Mountains to our river location at the Tom Groggin Rest Area, where we met the other people on the trip. They'd been camping there since Friday. We drove past the ski resorts of Thredbo ("I Like It!") and Perisher Blue, before reaching the Murray River, on the border of Victoria and New South Wales. The mountain pass was sadly lined with black trees, burnt from a recent bush fire which has left many of the mountain ashes dead.

I was really impressed with the amount of gear we were offered to wear as part of our trip. We had thermals (bearing a stylish green and purple horizontal stripe design), wet suits, paddle jackets, life jackets and helmets. Ben inflated the boats while we got kitted up, then we walked the boats down to the river. We had to wait for the parade of 4x4s to go past before we could get in them. Me and Claire shared one - we had 2-man sporting rafts since the river was so shallow, basically blow-up canoes, and it did worry me slightly that there would be no instructor on board!

Once we got going though, it was great, I paddled at first and Claire ruddered, then we swapped a little way down. The rapids were awesome - just like being on a theme park ride, but better because it's real! The only bummer was that because the river was so shallow we kept getting stuck and wedged on or between rocks! And it only seemed to be Me and Claire that this happened to!

Anyway, after a good 3-4 hours of hardcore extreme water sports (!) we retreated to the track for a late lunch of ham, tuna, salami, houmous and salad wraps, then back on to Jindabyne. We had enough time after getting back to nip to the IGA for tea, phone home and update our diaries, then we trekked over to the Lake Jindabyne Hotel to make sure the bus driver knew we were getting on in the morning. He was annoyingly spacey, but I think he got the message. Anyway, my legs are so achey and stiff from the waterskiiing yesterday I think an early night is in order!