Rafting =D

So whilst standing on the river bank, listening to my instructor go through the safety briefing, I suddenly came to the realisation that “I’ve never wanted to go rafting before... why the hell am I here?!” However, by this point it had gone way past the eleventh hour, my ¥10,000 had been paid, I was all wetsuited up, and I was stood with a paddle in my hand. Put that together with being a Jenkinson and I could hardly back out now. So without much fuss, though with a lot of trepidation, I climbed into the raft ready for the off... and then straight away got cramp in my leg... this was definitely going to be an interesting day.

So what can I say about rafting? You voluntarily sit at the edge of an inflatable raft, careering down a white water river with nothing to hold onto but your paddle and your breakfast in your stomach, and above all this you are supposed to be having fun. Sounds crazy right?! But after less than a couple of minutes and our first uneventful encounter with some rapids, the fear soon left to be replaced by nervous excitement as you begged your instructor to go through the worst part of the rapids possible – even when he gave you the choice to go the easier way! Needless to say I am fully converted and would go as far to say that I really enjoy rafting – despite the fear and occasions of your life flashing before your eyes (plus a lot of water) the adrenaline rush of pounding your way through sprays and whirlpools of white water compensates for everything else and you can’t help but to come out on the other side smiling.

Another great aspect of going down the river in this way is that you get to look at the surroundings in a way that is not really possible when walking along the side of the river. Not only do you get to look differently, you also get to interact differently as well. As part of our trip, there were a couple of opportunities where we could jump off quite high cliffs into the waters below (calm waters I should hasten to add – we’re not suicidal). The first jump was quite small. Now I’m not an expert in judging heights... in fact, I suck at judging anything like height, distance, amount etc, so this is a large guestimate, however, this jump was at least 20ft high (I try and measure against me and I’m pretty sure this was more than 4 times taller!). Anyway, I was very boring and did a simple jump into the water (I say simple – I pulled out some S Club moves mid-jump), others were braver with the best jump coming from Broc who casually pulled off a somersault into the water! The funniest moment of this jump came in the form of Bella, who had sat at the top of the jump watching everyone else go but not being able to muster up the courage to go herself. At the end there was just Bella and our guide Mark left at the top. Reassured by Mark, Bella agreed that they would jump at the same time. So holding onto Bella’s hand, Mark counted down.... “Three, two, one, go...” Mark went, Bella went to go, then stopped. However, at this point Mark had already gone, and as he was holding onto Bella’s hand, she had nowhere else to go but down with him. Actually, down on top of him, but that’s just picking at details. Anyway a fully shook-up Bella and a slightly confused Mark arose from the water to many a cheer all around. So this was the first jump.

Can't remember which  jump this is, but you get the point!

The second came after lunch and was much higher, therefore much more exciting than the first. Actually it was so much higher that we were seriously told that this time we could not pull off any stunts we wanted – there would be no somersaults from Broc as, if anything went wrong, we would seriously injure ourselves! No pressure then hey?! There was no doubt in my mind that I would do this jump at the beginning of the trip, however, being injured in the second half of the day knocked my confidence slightly – I didn’t really want to submerge myself in water from a height when I had a chunk taken out of my head... oh wait – I skipped that part in the story. I will explain more later on. (mwahaha, now you have to keep reading to find out what happened!) Anyway, although slightly nervous, I was determined to get my monies/excitement worth and so headed up the steep rocks (possibly 50ft, potentially more) and made it to the top where a countdown was given and the jumper plummeted to the water below! Actually, the hardest thing about this jump was the climb up to it – sheer rocks do not make for a leisurely stroll in the afternoon and the knowledge that one false move would have us falling to a lot of pain certainly kept us on our toes. I think the worst thing about jumps like this is that they’re over too quickly. By the time your brain has realised you have just jumped off a 50ft cliff, you have already hit the water safely (hopefully), therefore, after surfacing from the water after my first jump with some pain to the head and a bruised feeling ankle (both past injuries) I couldn’t really refuse another chance to jump again. So I did just that! And this one felt 10 times better. When I came to the surface I was even complimented on the elegance of the jump which I realised afterwards was all due to my trampolining training. After all, how many other times have I had to keep balanced whilst falling quickly through the air?!?!

So I bet you want to know about my injury right?! Well even if you don’t I’m going to tell you anyway! When going rafting there is always an element of risk involved. You know full well that something could happen and you could hurt yourself, I was included in this knowledge. However, throughout the whole day, apparently the most dangerous thing in the trip came in the form of my instructor Mark – a lovely Australian who enjoyed giving us the full rafting experience; crashing into rocks and the like. Ok let me set the scene. There were about 20 of us JETs on this trip split between three rafts. In the afternoon, one thing led to another and we all ended up invading one of the rafts – obviously for a perfect photo opportunity. 

After the photos were taken, everyone began to return to their own rafts. Sam (being in my raft and already in the water) began to swim to the side of our raft to be helped up. Bella and I however were still in the other raft and came to the conclusion that there was no need for us to get wet by getting in the water, we would simply scramble onto our raft that was next to the one we were on. This is where it went wrong. Picture the scene, Sam on the side of the raft trying to get on, and me at the end of the raft trying to crawl over. I don’t know how it happened, but in the process of pulling Sam onto the raft, my instructor’s paddle went from leaning in the middle of the raft to swiftly coming up to meet my face (the metal pole I should add – not the actual paddle bit)! Ow. I remember it in slow motion. When you get hit in the head, you have that few seconds while it takes your brain to unjumble itself and to work out what happened. In this (I will call) ‘Ow’ period, I reached up to my head with my other had to see if I was hurt – when I pulled my hand away, it was covered in blood. This let my brain know that no, I don’t think I am ok, now what. I simply reached out, tapped my instructor on the shoulder and waited for him to help. To be fair now, the memory of the look on his face is priceless. One of complete, “holy shit!” – actually I think his words were more along the lines of, “Oh my god, what happened?!” but you know the saying, a picture paints a thousand words, to me his face just said two. We all know that water makes blood looks 10 times worse, so when you have been cut on the head in the middle of the river, I can only imagine is an impressive sight. 

All I managed after that was to point to his paddle when he asked me what happened and then sit on the side of the raft with my eyes closed to stop a) the spinning and b) the blood from getting in my eye. I also calmly asked if he had a first aid kit, and when he confirmed he did I casually said “That’s alright then.” And then proceeded to say nothing for the next few minutes while he sorted me out! So yeah, at the time it wasn’t great, but now I look on it as quite a funny story especially watching the looks on people’s faces when they ask “What happened?” and I reply, “My instructor hit me on the head with his paddle.” All it took was a trip to the doctors and a few butterfly stitches and its well on its way to mend.

Anyway, fantastic day all round and great company, as always, provided by the lovely JETs. In my mother’s words, “I’m soooo lucky”! =)