Reflections of New Zealand: White Water Rafting

In a comment on my last post Frances Garrood mentioned that she fancied white water rafting.  Given that her last post was entitled My Brush With Death and simply referred to a quiet afternoon with a young grandson I thought that I would show a few of the photos from my white water rafting in New Zealand back in 2006.

A 'quiet' fall

Approaching the biggie

You have to get it absolutely right 

We did

The highest commercially run drop in the Southern Hemisphere

Wet!

Through successfully

I would add that the boat after us didn't and everyone was thrown into the water at the bottom.  The guides, who had all been having good fun until that moment, suddenly turned exceptionally professional and their training and calmness together with the first class briefings we had had meant that no one was hurt.  It was a very 'bonding' experience though because the two boats that were already down (we were the second) had to pick up all those from the upturned boat.

An Early Evening Ramble

I’ve spent the day sorting my computer files.  How exciting is that?  It’s been a fairly dry day and we were promised rain by late afternoon.  As I write this first sentence it’s 1730 (5.30 pm – I say that because I know that there are very considerable differences between countries as to how we talk about time)  the sun has just come out but if I look out of the house to the West and North the clouds don’t give me confidence that the sun will last.  Below the house near the shore a couple are just walking.  They are tourists.  How can I tell?  He has an umbrella in his hand.  No local would carry an umbrella.  Rain rarely comes without enough wind to render one useless.

I feel particularly sad this evening because I had a call from a former lecturer from Uni who became a friend and with whom I am still in touch.  He is having chemo for cancer.  A neighbour in Blogland has been told that she has an an intra-cranial mass.  Someone closer has been given similarly bad news.  A friend in New Zealand has just had an operation and finished radio-therapy.  I could go on.  I would usually be inclined to repeat the Gaelic saying that old age doesn’t come alone but even my former Uni lecturer isn’t much older than I am.  I could never understand survivors of a disaster who said they felt guilty for surviving.  This week I’ve had a similar feeling knowing that the cancer I carried for 12 years seems to have been seen off.

On a more mundane level some hens from about 100 yards away raided the garden this morning.  Cute they may look but the devastation that hens can wreak on a garden is not funny.  When I went outside I was not impressed by the fact that the cockerel ran away followed by the hen leaving the chicks to fend for themselves – they ran off in the opposite direction!

A neighbour’s cat decided to try and get a pigeon.  He wasn’t successful.

    

The new mis-fueling device is a lovely shade of pink.  Even without having to apply the correct nozzle before the cap can be removed one is unlikely to forget given its colour!

A particularly bright Greenfinch visited the feeders this afternoon.

And there were plenty of people down in the Bay including a wind-surfer.  I can’t recall seeing that particular sport in the Bay before.

And now to decide what to have for dinner.