Might get a little wet

After the surf session we drive back inland. Up the Buller River to Murchison. For just a quick look and a pee, we pay 12 NZD for a suspension bridge and continue to the campsite. There we book a rafting tour for the day after next. Because tomorrow it should !theoretically! It's raining all day and we're worried that Maren will get too cold and she won't have fun rafting. The "rainy day" turns out to be a very pleasant summer day and we even jump into the cold river. After breakfast we get ready for the tour and meet our guide and our two passengers. Maren can hardly hide her disappointment when she sees the woman with her young daughter (maybe around 11 years old). The two of them don't look like action at all. We are equipped with all the equipment. Shoes, wetsuit, sweater, jacket and life jacket. The boat and we are driven to the start of the tour in the transporter. After a safety briefing with a lot of “worst case scenarios” we finally get started. We practice the commands for the first kilometer or so and then the first rapids arrive. Maren and I are sitting in the front and are soaking wet from head to toe. It's the first rafting tour for me and I'm a little nervous, but with a constantly concentrated expression on my face and a constant "awww" mantra, I'm having fun with it. However, the exciting parts are not very frequent and are always over quickly. At the end, we can all jump off a rock that is around 5 meters high. Maren and I want to jump at the same time and count to 3. However, I hesitate and see Maren pop up in the water, an accusing "Marieeeee!" call and start drifting towards the boat. The little girl doesn't dare, so I wait until she and her mother have jumped and am the last to jump. What no one told us was that we would end up having to drag the huge inflatable boat up a very long and steep mountain. When we get there we have to wait because our transporter is stuck in the mud somewhere else. We finally get picked up because there are sand flies buzzing around us all the time and we really don't feel like getting bitten too much. We had a lot of fun on the tour, but in our opinion it could have been a little wilder. Instead of a pizza as originally planned, we get ice cream and each order two different scoops. However, the balls are mixed together in a very crazy way and so in the end everyone has a ball with a very strange double taste. We make a stop at what is actually a very beautiful waterfall. But it's incredibly dirty and we can't imagine that kayakers would throw themselves down here every now and then. We continue through breathtaking landscapes to Christchurch.