Today’s adventure was whitewater rafting, but the adventuring started long before we got to the river as there was an hour long off-roading trip in a minibus to even get near the water. Add to this the fact that there was some heavy rain in Fiji around the time of our visit, and it wasn’t the newest minibus in the world, it was certainly an exciting (or scary, if you believe everyone else on the bus) start to the day.
Once we arrived at the end of the trail, after surviving passing a truck on a precarious corner, we had a short walk through the boar-infested jungle to get to the river. According to our guides, hiding up a tree won’t even save you from these beasts, as they will just dig at the roots until the tree falls over – I’m hoping that the guides would have known what to do in this situation, but I don’t think that was the case.
Once we got to the water and the Fijian guides finished pumping up the boats, we set off down a relatively sedate bit of river, and then the fun began. This trip is considered to be in the Top 10 of white water rafting trips in the world, so I guess I picked a good choice for my first attempt. The canyon was beautiful, we ate bananas pretty much straight off the tree, walked around a ledge on a waterfall to get pummelled by the water, climbed up a mini waterfall for an sneaky exploration side trip when we stopped for lunch, and generally had a really fun day. I did seem to get a lot of water up my nose and in my eyes as I was at the front of the raft, but that just made it all much more funny, and somehow I managed to go the whole day without falling out.
At the end of the rafting, we got got of the river at a little village which was interesting in itself as we could see the locals bringing home crops and working the land (and see their pigs), and see a bit more about how people really live rather than the tourist-friendly alternative.
Tales from Australia 