by Andy Boulcott

We were woken up at about 9:00 am and my Patrol had about 2 minutes before breakfast. After we had washed up breakfast and after we got washed we had to decide on what we would do for the morning. It was raining so the Group which was going to go on a dawn hike to a cheesery pub never went. So after a while we decided to go and make some things in the shop across the campsite. We split up into 2 groups of 14; one Group went and made things out of leather like penknife holders, woggles etc., while the other Group went and did stone-carving where they made various shapes, necklaces and other strange objects. We were doing this until about 12:00 and we then went to get ready to go rafting. Once we were ready we had some lunch consisting of meatballs (yum!) and rice. We then had some angel delight and fruit cocktail for pudding, which was very nice.

After lunch we washed up and left the campsite at about 1.10 p.m.. We got to the rafting place at 2:00 where we waited 20 minutes for the people to arrive. Once they arrived we walked down to a hut where we were kitted out with wet suits, shoes, harness, oars and life-jackets. We then walked back to our coach where we were driven up along the river where the rafts were. We got out, grabbed our oars and we were given a safety talk on what to do if you fell out. After this we got in our rafts with our guides and we were told how to use the oars and what certain phrases meant i.e. when he shouted ‘trees’ we had to duck into the boat otherwise we would get a very bruised face. Once the instructors had finished talking we launched the rafts into the river. This was not as easy as it seems as we got into the boat from the back first, where once we were all in we were launched off a vertical drop into the river. To start with, the rafting was quite smooth but after about 2 or 3 minutes we hit some rapids. After about 15 - 30 minutes people started to fall in as the rapids were excellent. Luckily they were rescued by the boats in front and no-one got hurt. Our boat was going really well until we hit a rock half the size of the boat, when Pete managed to fall in. (Apparently because he needed a wash - yeah right Pete!!). Once another boat had rescued Pete we got going again Once we got going our Instructor told everyone to move back one seat. We had no idea why, until we hit a huge rock dead on where the whole raft tipped up vertical and nearly flipped over. We all managed to hold on this time and went on for another few minutes until another obstacle got in our way; this time we all had to dive right into the raft as there was an alleyway full of 1 foot high trees. As we got near to the end of the course our Instructor managed to throw us all in except for Robin and Pete who tried to throw him in. Once we got out and pulled the rafts out we were happy that Rob Neal was wet as he was saying how dry he was throughout the whole course. We walked back to the hut where we got changed and headed back to the campsite. The rafting was really good and everybody who did it enjoyed it as we realised speeds of 20 - 30 mph on 2 foot + high rapids. We arrived at the campsite at about 7:00 p.m. where we got our scarves and went to a Bar-b-cue where we had some burgers, bread, peppers, pasta etc. which was quite nice but there wasn’t much left as we arrived 30 minutes late. After eating we went back to the site, had some chocolate and cakes and we went to bed at about 10:30 p.m..