Travel: rafting the river wild | Canterbury News | Local News in Canterbury

The Christchurch Star today starts a new Travel page which will run weekly on a Wednesday, bringing readers articles on faraway places?and some much closer to home like today's piece from chief reporter Amanda Legge who with husband Michael spent three days on the wild side ? rafting the rugged Landsborough River, halfway between Wanaka and Haast

So this was HellFire.

A huge, powerful grade-five rapid on the Landsborough River that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand straight up in the air just looking at it.

And just to make it that bit more exciting, heavy rainfall in the backcountry meant this piece of white water was running higher and faster than usual and had been elevated to a grade-six rapid.

I was thankful our three guides wouldn't take us inexperienced rafters down the rapid because of safety reasons.

The problem was ? how were our two rafts going to get downstream and on the way to our second campsite. The thought of untying all our gear and carting it over the massive rocks lining the river was not appealing and would be time-consuming.

Our guides decided to save us the trouble.

The trio, made up of French Canadian Michel Lepage, Roger Leigh and Peter Gordon aka Wizz, could see a line through the rapid and would take the rafts through themselves.

We would climb down the rocks and meet them at the bottom of the rapid to get back on the rafts and continue down the river. That was the plan anyway.

But HellFire had different ideas.

The first raft came halfway down the rapid and then a slight miscalculation saw it flip and the guides come spilling out. On the shore, Mike, myself and the four other tourists were remarkably quiet, as we watched the raft hurtle downstream and our guides swim to shore.

I guess knowing they had about 40 years' rafting experience between them led us to thinking they had the situation in hand. And they did.

Roger grabbed his safety kayak and paddled after the raft, while Michel, who thankfully was also on our side of the river, ran back up to us and explained we would have to rope the second raft down the rapid from the shoreline ? without anyone on board.

Wizz was over on the other side of the river, nursing a slightly sore ankle, and had to wait until we had the raft down to a safe point on the rapid and could paddle over to get him.

It took nearly two hours, and a lot of sweat, to get over to him and back on our way.

But what a great evening we all had at the second camp reliving the adventure blow by blow, while we sat over our evening meal of lamb, roasted potatoes with herbs and Greek salad, followed by a tasty dessert and washed down with wine and beer.

This was the sort of rafting trip I was meant to do.

Excitement and adventure during the day as we travelled down the river, but camping in luxury when we arrived at our campsites in the late afternoon.

The entire trip was amazing.

We had met the rest of the group at Queenstown Rafting's base in Queenstown.

The other rafting enthusiasts included German couple Frank Iroehlich and Ute Schnabel and another couple, Gavin Green, from England, and Anke Passfeld, from Germany.

Everyone apart from Schnabel and myself had rafted before.

We travelled in a bus to Makarora, located on the Haast Pass Highway, and then flew by fixed wing plane into Toe Toe Flat. We were dropped at the first camp on the "wrong" side of the river and then taken to the "right" side by helicopter ? my first time in a chopper.

A light rain was falling and it was nice to arrive at a campsite that already had a semi-permanent structure up for us to shelter under while the guides got coffee brewing and dinner on the way. We plastered on the insect repellent because the sandflies were out in large numbers.

When the rain stopped we took a relaxing bush walk, with a glass of wine or beer in hand. On returning it was time to sit down to a first-class meal of chicken balsamico with Mediterranean stir-fry, which was preceded by cheese, crackers, mussels and olives.

We awoke at 8am to a cooked breakfast of bacon and eggs and toast, as well as fruit salad and cereal. An industrious mood took over the camp as we packed everything up and changed into our wetsuits and booties ready for a day rafting.

The guides spent a long time strapping our gear securely onto the two rafts, something we were grateful for later after the Hellfire experience. The raft travelled about 2km downstream upside down ? but nothing came loose or got wet.

Mike and I were on one raft with Michel and a lot of the gear, while Wizz was the guide on the other raft for Gavin, Anke, Frank and Ute.

Roger was out in front in the kayak, letting Michel and Wizz know what was up ahead.

We listened hard to Michel and when he told us to paddle I dug hard to prove I wasn't just a city reporter out for a free ride.

Being out on the river seemed like another world. When there were no rapids we could look around and gain a deeper appreciation of how beautiful this country was.

We were surrounded by scenery few others would have the chance to enjoy. Moss covered the boulders and trees and left us in awe.

Rare birds such as the whio, or blue duck, and the mohua, or yellowhead, among others are found in the valley.

The majority of people who go rafting down south, be it on the Landsborough or just a half-day trip on the Shotover, are from overseas.

It seems such a shame more New Zealanders don't give it a try.

After experiencing the thrill of rafting myself, I'm keen to do it again and would encourage other Kiwis to give it a go.

# Amanda and Michael Legge enjoyed the Landsborough Wilderness Experience courtesy of Queenstown Rafting.