So this place is not just about working, but we do some awesome recreational stuff too. Like whitewater rafting! The Wairoa river in NZ is some of the best rafting out there. Or at least our guide who claimed to have rafted all over the place said it was his favorite. This river is normally dammed up, but in order to be allowed to be dammed, they had to agree to release the dam 26 times a year just so that people can raft down it. New Zealand is awesome like that. It was quite thrilling with a bunch of class 4 and 5 rapids. Our boat was me, the 5 other volunteers and two guides. We started off learning how to control the boat and basically blindly follow our guide, Prince's, commands. Sounded strange at first, but turned out to be quite necessary. I was even a little scared listening to Prince talk about the rapids and how to not break yourself if you fall out or the boat flips. Although at least for me it is comforting to know that I am stronger then most other people in the boat, and if they are doing it then I should be fine.
In the end, no one fell out (on purpose), but we definitely got thrashed around quite a bit. Check out the picasa pics. Then for one of the last rapids (a small one) they gave us the option to float down it without the boat. Of course we all said yes, and then got loads of water up our noses and scraped a couple rocks... but it was totally worth it.
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