An interesting Sunday…

15/03/09

We spotted a church not too far from Turner Lodge a little while ago and we thought it would be nice to drop in for morning service, if we can get there in time. After breakfast Andrew remembers what time the service begins and reflects sadly that he doesn’t think we’ll make it. I squint determinedly and stick my nose in the air when he eyes my high heels speculatively…
I don’t buy heels in which I can’t run…
We make it.
And have time to stop panting before we enter!
;)
St Peter’s, Queenstown is very welcoming. They must be used to random rock climbers and daredevil thrill-seekers creeping in, in need of solace or regularity and they are open and friendly. The sermon is interesting, based on the idea that Jesus was a sacrificial lamb for each of us once and for all, an idea which is easily said and heard, but hard to grasp. I think I understand it a little better now. The vicar also talked about the moment when the Temple curtain tore top to bottom. I had always thought that it was a reference to the Jewish way of tearing one’s clothes when in new mourning, but it seems deeper than tat. The inner sanctum of the Temple was so very holy that none but the very highest of high priests was ever allowed in there, and the curtain was there to promote this elevation and segregation. This was taken to such an extent that if a High Priest went in there (usually only once a year) he had a rope tied about his waist in case something happened to him and then he could be pulled out without the desecration of unclean feet entering beyond the curtain. When Jesus died, this curtain was torn down to show that this segregation was no longer necessary within the Church and that the holiest inner sanctum should be available to all.
After some quiet reflection (it was nice to go to a ‘proper’ service after having not found one for several weeks) and a cup of hot chocolate (kindly made for me by a lady who ponders my desire for no caffeine and then finds a jar of unnamed brown powder that smells vaguely chocolatey. It might be Milo…), we head out to a little bakery for a late breakfast of apricot croissant. Not the best croissant, but certainly tasty and welcome!
We have a thought.
A watery thought.
A slightly scary thought.
A very wet thought…
We head for the Isite to check out the white water rafting possibilities! The girl in the Isite tells us that there are two places only left on the Grade 3-5 Shotover route and several more places left on the Kawari route, which is 2-3 and a gentler experience. I want to go for the Kawari river one as I’m already incredibly nervous about the idea and this route also takes you past some of the LOTR scenes.
However, my mind is made up for me by Andrew’s coercion and a combination of circumstance. As there are too few people booked onto the gentle afternoon rapids, the trip has been cancelled, so we take a chance (or a leap of faith in my case – I really am quite nervous now!) and book the two remaining places on the morning one.
Which leaves us with half an hour to go and find swimmers, towels and get contact lenses in!
I emerge, lenses in and carrying as little as possible with me but for water and a few small and inexpensive essentials. We are soon back at the iSite in good time and wait, with some trepidation in my case, amongst a small crowd of mainly young people who are clearly, to my worried brain, fearless, tanned, powerful, proud warriors and Amazons who will bound happily over drenched rocks with ease, leaving me flailing and blowing frantic bubbles in their happy wake…
Did I mention here one of the few things which actually truly terrifies me?
No?
Water.
More specifically, moving water.
Eek.
But it is a lovely sunny day and it does look rather fun…
On the bus I have a few slight misgivings, but these are quelled by friendly company and cheery professionals.
We arrive at the Centre where we all file into the building and stand around a tall, scruffy, leggy, blond guy who has clearly spent a lot of time healthily outdoors enjoying what NZ has to offer in the way of excitement. We are told how to put on the wetsuit (and how not to put it on backwards) how to choose boots (which must be too big rather than too small) and how we have got to listen to everything we are told or bad things will happen! Kit talk done, they get on with ushering us through to get wetsuits and wetsuit jackets. The burly chap standing in the room where they are all hanging up, eyes me appraisingly and apparently I am a 3, I think. I paddle off to the changing room and try to get into the wretched thing...
It’s rather like wrangling a particularly wilful skinned octopus, and I am already mentally challenged and rather tired by the time I have oiked the wretched thing on and velcroed the straps tightly over my shoulders. Bring on the obligatory and unavoidable wedgie!
I zip up my jacket and realise that I now feel immediately like a ruptured frog. I lope out, adopting an uncomfortable John Wayne stance whereby each limb sticks out at an odd angle and each foot stomps down solidly of its own accord. Ah well.
Next I am issued with a helmet and lifejacket.
I think it prudent to warn someone in charge that I have a randomly occurring heart problem, that could go ‘sproing’ at any moment, particularly if I’m a little high on adrenaline…
I speak to one person who looks immediately rather worried, says she’s sure it’ll be fine, then goes off to find someone with some kind of medical training.
A young man comes back with her and quizzes me about my symptoms, reiterating that white water rafting is a stressful activity and am I sure I’ll be ok?
I learn that, during the previous week, a rather more vintage gentleman had been plunged into the cold water and died of a heart attack. Their concern makes more sense now, and I chuckle at their discomfiture, reassuring THEM that, should my tachycardia flare up, then a good ducking in freezing cold water will be just the thing to set it ticking right again!
I am, however, rather perturbed that I have lost Andrew, who has my heart pill, and who I am a little nervous without, given the activity! There is a brief moment of kerfuffle (under pretence of locating my pill) and it is ascertained that he’s already on a bus on its way up. I am put next to a chap in the minibus whose girlfriend has just done exactly the same thing!
We commiserate.
I chat also to two Irish girls, one of whom is horribly hungover, but cheery and game and hoping that the cold water will sort her headache out!
I suspect that the journey up to the rafting departure point doesn’t make her feel any better at all…
The mountain track we are on is very small, tiny in fact. Skippers’ Canyon road is barely wide enough for the minibus. It transpires that there is a whole adventure outing that you can buy which consists of driving up here in a four by four.
The general feeling on the minibus, particularly among the leaders, is a sense of ‘Pah! Pansies! We can do this trip even in an elderly minibus with a dozen rafts in a trailer on the back!’
And Johnny at the wheel says that he finished the Skipper’s Canyon computer game just this morning so he’s feeling well-prepared…
Gulp.
They are a chirpy lot, these professional rafters, and make the journey up to the top even more interesting than it would be already… We are told a story about one of the rock formations we pass; it looks oddly familiar as I squint at it and the story goes that, one day, an elephant was walking along the ridge and spotted a mushroom (another rock formation, further up the hill), out of which he took a bite. It made him go a little peculiar and he is still on his back, looking at the sky and hasn’t got up since.
I peer out of the window and swallow heavily against the zip of my wetsuit as I realise that I can’t see the edge of the road, so close are we to the sheer drop. There are sections where the road has clearly begun to crumble away and the road is considerably narrower. We pass through Hell’s Gate and Heaven’s Gate, so named by the miners, depending on how much they had found. There are few passing places, but many corners, curves and sheer drops. It is scary, bumpy and gravelly. The leader jokes that the drops have grades just like the rapids do, for instance, if you would roll 15 times down this part of the mountain before you explode in a big ball of flames, then that would be a grade 15! He then has a serious moment and takes us through the legal bit. Much like the Zorbing disclaimer, it pretty much says that if you’ve got any medical problems or a weak bladder then whatever happens is not gonna be their fault, thank you very much. There is also a large card to look at detailing what you must and must not do – there are specific ways of falling out of the boat, ways to get back in, ways to float and what not to do, like floating feet downwards because of all the old goldmining debris in which your feet could be caught. I hesitate over signing the disclaimer document, as it really does make the whole thing quite terrifying.
We reach the riverside and I have really started to freak out, what with Andrew being somewhere else and the prospect of being thrown about, breathless, upside down through speeding rapids over hidden rusty equipment that could tear me to shreds.
I am a gibbering wreck by the time I arrive on the shingle shore but I am determined not to let myself down and go back – largely because I couldn’t face going over that road again!
:P

There are several guides and the party is divided between them. We are given paddles and told that we must always keep our hands on the pommel end so as to avoid smacking each other in the eye or teeth… We are inserted into our helmets, which are wobbled and thumped by our guide, Jared. He also checks our lifejacket straps, tugging at them and hoiking them up just to be sure they hold under our arms. The rafts are small, only seating six, and look rather flimsy…
We are a motley crew; I chat nervously to one of the other ladies.
Neither of us can swim very well and we look at each other sheepishly before we tell Jared. He looks at us benevolently, as you might a litter of wobbly puppies, and says we’d better have the seats near the back just in front of him so that he can haul us back in if we fall out! The chunkier gentlemen he puts at the front, with a cheeky laugh, and Andrew and the other lady are in the middle two places.
Jared is a nice, confident, friendly, tanned-brown chap with strong features, neat hair and a long but cheerful face. He does this every summer and helps out at a ski-slope in Austria during the winter. If anyone can restore my equilibrium, it is him. Chatting to him and the other ladies is helping already, and I am merely very scared now rather than petrified with terror. We push our raft out into the clear river and hop in, feet wet. Jared tells us how to wedge our feet, one under our own seat, one under the seat in front, so that we are less likely to tumble out in the rapids. This is faintly reassuring and I jam my feet near-irrevocably beneath the inflatable seats. We are also to sit on the edge of the raft, not near the centre, as this is easier, apparently. Thus arranged, we smile nervously for the girl on the bank with a camera and we’re off!
Well, this seems nice…
We float a while, while Jared gives us a brief lesson on how to handle the paddles and not fall out.

The water is clear blue, really blue, not just a reflection of the sky, and every pebble is visible on the bottom. We paddle downstream happily, in the sun. A white-water-rafting cicada turns up on my knee and I haven’t the heart to throw it out of the raft in case it drowns. I turf it out as we pause at a little shingly beach for further instructions and hope that it has the sense to fly rather than drop. As we paddle downstream we see a small flock of mountain goats, apparently suckered to the canyon’s face by just their hooves, grazing happily on some hardy and vertically-growing plant.
We stop at another shingly little beach and tie up. We are invited to get wet – really wet!
The girls decline and we paddle happily in the shallows in our huge, water-filled wetsuit boots while we watch the guys take the plunge off a large rock into the water. The large gentleman with the grizzled beard makes a wonderful booming ‘splosh!’ and we cheer as our respective men emerge, drenched and dripping but grinning, like large, happy dogs.
We get back in our squeaky rubber raft and Jared pushes us off again, steering with his paddle as we paddle with ours. We overtake another raft in a burst of activity on a flattish section of water and retaliation ensues, leading to much splashing and an amiable yell from Jared as he splashes back. The look-out canoeist zips between us and spies out the river ahead for us… It is getting a little rougher here. There are moments when Jared has to yell, ‘Get down!’ or, ‘Hold on!’ He has taught us how to slide quickly into the middle of the raft, paddles stowed, so that we can avoid overhangs of rock or other dangerous protrusions. He also drilled into us early on how to hold on, not just by cramming ourselves in with wedged feet, but by gripping the slim rope which lies across each central ridge and down the sides of the raft. There are moments where he yells, ‘hold on!’, and I fumble for a rope, unable to grip it because my right hand has become cold with the splashing water and I cannot let go of the round end of the paddle for fear of knocking out someone’s teeth… I wedge my feet ever further under the seat in front until I can no longer feel my sloshing wet toes and bound down the rapids like a ruptured frog, squeaking in terrified delight as water flies around from all sides, eager to toy with these strange new floating playmates… We bounce off rocks, squeaking and scraping past them, turning slightly in the roaring current.
Paddle!
Paddle harder!!
Keep paddling!!!
*Bounce, bounce, splash, turn, slide, twist, water spray*
Hold on!!
*close eyes, clutch paddle, feel raft slide and bounce beneath me, hold on with feet and grip with cold hands*

And we are out of that rapid, sliding sideways down the gentle canyon, the sun warm on our backs and the limpid blue river washing over the multicoloured water-rounded pebbles. It is almost as if the rapid had never been.
But there is more to come!
There is more paddling, and a few gentle rocks to bounce over, fun in the light spray and twist as we paddle or hold on as instructed. Ahead, there is another raft, bouncing carefully down a rapid, with the canoeist, standing on a rock with a rope in one hand, watching anxiously ahead.
Jared sees a warning nod from the canoeist and pulls a stunt. He clearly has a certain amount of confidence in us as he gets us to paddle in detail, to one side and then the other, to turn us how he wants the raft. He leaps from the raft onto a tiny beach beneath a slanted overhand and grips the mooring line of the raft tightly, crouching with the raft just between his muscled brown knees. He yells and waves at the leader of the raft behind us, who waves back and sticks his thumbs in the air – Very few people apparently make it into this little area, barely big enough for a raft, and Jared is proud of himself (and us) for making it. It is known as Tim’s Cove and is tricky, and therefore can go horribly wrong… We wait for a signal and Jared pushes us back out into the water – he impresses on us that the boat has to go that way or we might all fall out – there is a rock up ahead which presents a twofold danger. Firstly, if the current catches us side on just here, it may well flip the raft, leaving us to bounce down the rapids with no more protection than our kit and the extra pies we have eaten in the past… Secondly, if we hit the rock at the centre of the rapid square on, we could end up wrapped around it and then risk being flung out into the white tumbling water below… We listen with straight faces and follow his instructions to the letter.
He says paddle, we throw ourselves into it with a will and soon we are twisting and turning in the water at the perfect angle; we bound into the white water and, still paddling ferociously, we scrape past the rock with a nasty squeaking sound, ‘Hold on!!’ and we clutch our ropes as the raft lurches, bounces and squeaks beneath us, a frail steed for these treacherous waters…
And we floating again, turning gently until, paddling, we come to a gentle stop in the warm sun. The water here fizzes and sparkles up around the boat, like sitting in champagne; it spritzes up blue around us, twinkling in the sun with bubbles and glints of mica. It is very pretty. Another raft is moored up to the left of the rapid we have just come down, with its leader standing on a rock in the sun, hair awry, hands on hips, watching the river. We join them; there are still two more rafts to come and as we are at the back we are the safety net for anyone who may be thrown out. We watch excitedly and yell encouragement to the next one as we see the blue tip of its nose bouncing over the rock. It squeaks and rubs rather too close to the edge, jamming dangerously and stopping sharply. A yell goes up and the final raft must be waiting nervously for their turn. The leader of the stranded raft yells at his team to bounce. There are giggles and bounce they do, all in time eventually – and it pays off, freeing the raft through combined efforts of paddling and bouncing and they are off, spinning gently down the rapid to come to a halt a little further down the river, where they soon disappear from sight.
Last raft safely over, we all untie and are off again.

We go through several more rapids today, each one, for me, living up to its name: The Anvil, The Toilet, Mother-in-law’s Tunnel (that one is scary – bouncing through the dark, crouched in the bottom of the boat, seeing the light recede and the point of light at the end grown nearer, hearing the rushing water and not knowing what the other end will bring), the Pinch. We also pass some staggeringly beautiful spots, seen from below, we see the Skipper’s Canyon road, looking like an ant’s trail so far above and so fragile; we eye the areas where it has been heavily repaired after tumbling down and I am suddenly glad I have come this way on the river, and not driven back up that death-defying track. We see butterflies, a few, spot more goats, admire trees high above with clinging debris, the remnants of floods from a few years back. We are lucky – today the rapids have been at roughly a mere Grade 3 as it is coming to the end of Summer, rather than the 5 they may attain when the water is high in the early Spring. Grade 5 is for serious rafters only, anything above that is just foolhardy and can be fatal, though several hardy canoeists have apparently done this route with the snowmelt in it!
Jared points out to us various other sights like the heights of luxury that were corrugated-iron goldminers’ huts – they still stand, along with the sharp and peculiar equipment strewing the riverbed and banks, a testament to the grit of those men in earlier days. We also see the Canyon Swing area. We drift by in the shadows at the bottom of the canyon, staring upwards at a zipwire stretched across it. We can see a couple of nervous figures hovering around at the lip of the canyon in a small purpose-built hut. We rafters, about 6 rafts’ worth, all stop paddling and wait, craning our necks backwards in an attempt not to miss it… I pondered this activity, then decided firmly against it, thinking that I would probably need new pants, if not a new brain by the time I had finished… The victi- participants, sorry, stand at the lip of the canyon, and then throw themselves off the lip of it, swinging into the canyon, as the name suggests, along a large zipwire, swinging back and forth until someone pulls them back up again…
So, we watch, one of the leaders yells, ‘Come on! Jump! Pansy!’ And we take up the call,
‘Jump! Jump! Jump! Jump!’, safe in our little rubber rafts far below, unafraid by now of the swirling waters we have made our plaything.
Eventually, a figure leaps (or is maybe pushed!) from the edge, and falls, a small, dangling figure, soaring out over the edge and free-falling, flying, swooping down out over the canyon before swaying to a halt, bobbing neatly at the end of the rope. We cheer as he falls, a loud raucous noise of shared and appreciated adrenaline, which carries out over the water and echoes off the walls.
I hope he had fun as we watched, we did!
As we near the end of our trip, we see a huge speedboat powering around one of the bends n the river towards us. I am nervous, though I think the old rule, ‘Steam gives way to sail’ would still apply here. We pause in our paddling and watch the green trees slow their passage as the canyon opens out. The massive speedboat, Queenstown Jet, I think, curves neatly around us, leaving a small wake, and does what looks like a handbrake turn at the base of the rapids, powering past us again with a whoosh, a happy chorus of yells and waving, and a slight smell of petrol. That is a bit of a surprise to the nostrils; it has been so peaceful and natural along the canyon so far and the jet boat is a reminder of the modern way…
However, our party shortly has great need of it, unfortunately. Jared, responding to some signal we don’t hear, pulls the raft up on a shingly beach and asks the large, bearded gentleman to hold it while he bolts off upriver like a greyhound after a hare, to find out what the problem is. We sit in the sun, ruptured frogs in our black wetsuits and yellow accessories, paddling about over the dry, sun-drenched rocks, wondering what the problem is. Jared is back a little while later and it turns out that one of the photographers, a young woman with long black hair, has slipped on a wet rock and fallen. She avoided falling in the water, but has broken her wrist by breaking her fall onto a rock with outstretched hand.
Ouch.
The Jet boat comes to collect her; it is designed to go fast, so cannot be too gentle or it won’t work, but the driver is clearly trying to avoid bouncing her as much as possible as the boat slides around the corners and a flurry of vehicles greets the hapless photographer as she reaches dry land on the other side…
Still, she will mend and the guides aren’t too worried about her. This sort of thing must happen more in Queenstown that in other places so I suspect the local A and E are used to putting people back together! As all seems to be well once again, we push off our raft and paddle the short and relatively smooth distance to the landing site, where we stow our paddles and heave our rafts onto the trailer before making our way up the path back to our clothing…
That was fun!
:D
It really didn’t seem to be as scary as it looked, and was nowhere near as terrifying as I thought it would be – in fact, I’d rather like to do it again! I think, what I fear generally seems to be fear itself, rather than actually the water. I am proud that today I gripped that fear and made it to what I wanted to do rather than allowing it to keep me in its thrall, watching mutely from the bank. And I thoroughly enjoyed myself and got soaked into the bargain!
Hooray!
Andrew and I and some of the other rafters (the Irish girl’s hangover seems to have gone) get a lift back into Queenstown with one of the other leaders, who drives the minibus, and he talks to us about the rafting – it has been brilliant fun; I thing we picked the best day in the best season for it too!
And Then We Went Home For Tea.
;)
Well, actually, we mooched around the shops, had a wash and ate some dinner at Turner Lodge while we decided what to do next… Nothing here seems to close before 11pm, even on a Sunday – it’s great! And noone seems to resent working late either, it’s a lovely town, the atmosphere feels nice and there’s a general sense of helpful fun to most of the places you visit.
Well, what to do later?
There’s a bar in Queenstown that Andrew and I both want to visit; it’s called Minus 5 and it’s rather pricey to get in, but as Andrew paid for the rafting, I offer…
We loiter in the entrance room across the street, wondering what to expect. It seems that you are allowed in in groups of eight or so and we are the first here so we wait for some more people to come and for the previous eight to depart. We are issued with warm gloves and enormous fur-lined, hooded coats. The bloke issuing these, takes one look at mine and another girl’s nice, open, shoes and swaps them for UGG boots, which are, if nothing else, fluffy and warm. He then hands us over to another gentleman, who is also going to be our barman, and he leads us in, through a very heavy industrial door.
I blink as we enter. The entire bar, and I mean the ENTIRE bar, is made of ice. The walls are glossy, slick bricks, ice sculptures line the walls, the bar itself is one massive block of ice and the lights above it shine through the words, ‘Minus 5’ and ‘Absolut’ that are carved into the wall above the bar. There is a shot shooter shaped like a revolver, also entirely made of ice and the ice block seats are draped in various spotted animal furs so that you can sit on them. It’s very cold, but quite beautiful – the sculptures are mainly Valentine-themed as it is only a month since StValentine’s and they have the sculptures replaced once every few months. There are a couple of swans, tall figures, posing elegantly, little cherubs, something tribal and a fish lurking in the window. I gawk and take many pictures, so does everyone else…

I order an Arctic Passion, which comes in a chunky ice glass. We are instructed to hold these glasses in both hands, as they are liable to slip out! It feels strange, sipping an ice cold cocktail over the chunky rim of this glass, numbing your lips but tasting divine. We take many photographs and I watch the bartender too, in his gloves, pouring and mixing and inventing too, when he ran out of one ingredient. The result seemed to go down well with the recipient, though I’m not sure what it turned into (the cocktail, not the recipient…)!
Having been kindly but firmly ejected from this glittering, frozen bar, Andrew and I are in the mood for more cocktails and we stalk around, looking for a bar that isn’t too noisy, smoky or busy. We push our way through a happy, hot throng into one bar and have a look at the bar. Nothing grabs either of us, so we lope out, hunting for somewhere a little more salubrious. Eventually, we find somewhere. Up some stairs and through a little door, we find a tiny cocktail bar called Brewsters where we bask in the atmosphere. Ambient, funky, jazzy music pours like syrup out of excellent, discreet speakers and the low lighting and warm fire are most welcome after the brittle frozen brightness of Minus 5. We choose our cocktails and sink into the leathern armchairs by the fire to admire them. I have chosen something called a Broose Joos (Vodka, Lychee liqueur, elderflower and orange, giving it a lovely warm glow) and Andrew has something similar to the Arctic Passion, called, imaginatively, Passion. It contains passion fruit, lime, orange, pineapple and Cointreau. Very tasty, and also pretty… We settle back and admire our cocktails in the warm glow, feeling very contented and rather as if we have stepped into a Bond movie (for the second time in two days!). Maybe a secret door will open shortly and a white-blonde young woman will come through a sheet of flames to take our next orders… The leather seats, décor and gentle jazzy music do nothing to dispel this image. Neither do the cocktails.
It is very atmospheric here and the cocktails are lethal, so you must forgive me if I become a little incoherent… ‘Hic!’ says Andrew.
We are both happily relaxed and enjoy our cocktails, though I think one is sufficient for me!
Oops. I think my contact lenses have slipped.
Hang on.
I took them out several hours ago…
*giggles*
The cocktails are between $12 and $16 apiece, which isn’t too bad and we are enjoying this nice end to our day. We chat briefly to another, small group of people who have come in and find that the lady, who is very friendly, is manager of the Allan Scott Wineries in Marlborough. We shall have to go and visit… Another thing on the list for next time!
‘Night ‘night!
;)