Day 9 (Friday)Remember a few days earlier we had asked about rafting? Sally had phoned the rafting company and made a reservation for us.
We arrived early and sat waiting, though it wasn't clear where we were supposed to meet the rafting people - there was a sign, but it pointed back at the car park, and the guy on the phone had just said meet at the car park.
Eventually, after seeing a couple of suitably rugged looking guys cross the bridge we followed and spotted an unmarked area below the cable car station - this was indeed the place.
I changed into the supplied wetsuit and stupidly I left my waterproof camera with my clothes. Organised activities like this these days tend to have all sorts of rules about what you can't take with you, indemnity, waivers, only allowed to purchase their photos and video, etc. It turned out that the young guys running this didn't care two hoots about that sort of stuff, all they said was - just pay us afterwards (free if you drown).
The rapids were fairly tame, but we had a great time. On board was the son of the business owner, his muscly friend (who didn't speak English), a couple of guys from Israel, a German guy who had tried this once before in Canada and us. What was really nice was not just that the guys running it were laid back, but everyone else doing it was pretty much a beginner and no-one was trying to impress anyone else or complain they weren't in their favorite position or didn't have the right equipment or the water wasn't exciting enough.
The trip included a side-detour to a water fall and a chance to sneakily climb up a bridge and jump off it into the water (I don't think more official or safety conscious rafting companies would have stood for any of that) - "yeh, sometimes we jump off the bridge over there - OK, you want to? we could do that..." - well, Sally didn't need much encouraging, and the other guys couldn't back down once she had set the challenge. I stayed in the boat and helped Mr Muscle maneuver it while Sally and the others climbed the half-broken access ladder up the bridge to jump in unison. The Israeli said "In my country, we say of someone who has no fear that 'they are a lion'. Your wife is a lion".
We exchanged email addresses with the Israeli so I could email him the team photo, then drove around to the waterfall and parked for lunch:
We returned to the campground achy but happy.
Stay tuned for more climbing and the start of our journey north...
