Saturday, November 29, 2003

Dart River (1 of ?)

Weather was supposed to be really pretty today, so I decided to take advantage and do something water-related.  I wanted to ride a jetboat.  There was one over the river over which I swung (the Shotover) but I figured I was looking for something different.  I had the whole day, so decided to do a full day "soft adventure" on the Dart River.

I wholly approve of this whole "soft adventure" concept -- I want to do the adventurey things, but not actually break a sweat.  ;)

Queenstown is on the bank of a lake.  A really long lake.  The Dart River empties into it at the other end.  So the whole adventure started when the bus picked us up and drove for about, I dunno, an hour, just to get to where we were starting.

Arriving at their home base, we were then fitted (I use the word in the broadest sense of the term) with wetsuits and booties.  Now, I've worn a wetsuit (diving) -- nobody would've actually let me go underwater with this thing fitting as loosely as it was.  But since we weren't diving, I let it go.  My booties were also too big.  Letting this go turned out to be one of my less smooth moves.

Here's the thing...  we were scheduled to jet boat and "funyak"... neither of these things actually involves getting IN the water (unless by accident)... so I didn't think it was real important for the wetsuit booties to fit.  The fact, however, that when we put on the booties, they were still wet from the day before should have served as a warning sign.

No comments: