Today I went kayaking. It was just so random.
Was just glancing through their website last night and since I woke up early today just decided to do it.
I even just brought my breakfast over there because I was afraid they don't accept late booking.
This sweet fella up there was helping me with my bread crusts while I waited for the journey to Lake Mapourika.
There was 6 of us plus our guide.
And gosh kayaking is serious here.
We had to put on this thing called spraydeck to keep water from going into the kayak which was made of like diver material fitted to our hips, then a life jacket and a poncho.
And before all that gear we sprayed on insect repellent because the guide tells us there's sand flies.
The kayak turns by foot paddles linking to a rudder for the back person to be in charge of.
That was the cool part. But I was terrified anyway.
So I asked the girl I was paired with to sit behind. Lol.
The guide then pushes us into the lake. And it wasn't so bad at first.
Yeah, like he just asked us to kayak across the lake.
My arms start aching in 30 strokes or so and I had to rest.
I kept apologizing to the girl behind me but really tried to keep up with the rest.
When we got across, he goes the hard 2.something km is over let's now circle the corner, and then he started giving advise to do the limbo and not dodge if any branches came in your face.
*sweat*
So I kept voicing out everytime we were near branches or anything that was in the way.
Because I just couldn't limbo with all the layers I had on!
When we rounded the corner and went a little further in, he then proceed to tell us that we were going to go down a creek. *double sweat*
And at first it was quite wide.
But it got narrower and there was a U kind of part and the rudder did not work in the narrow creek. And we banged into sides, branches and leaves.
So I was having a lot of hysterical moments.
It was embarassing being the only one so paranoid. Haih.
But thankfully the girl behind had kayak experience so she handled everything calmly.
Somewhere later we stopped and the guide explained about the kiwi sanctuary part we have reached.
He then gave us each a leaf to chew, said it will taste like gum.
The moment we have chewed, he grinned from seeing all our faces and proceed to mention its from a hot pepper tree.
It was a terrible pepper taste! What a prank.
And he added that in the old days people used it as anaesthetic for toothache as it numbs the mouth from being so peppery hot!
I wish I could have bring some back to prank people with too.
I was hoping he would tell us we didn't have to go back the way we came but he did as he said the creek gets narrower further on.
The girl behind me suggested only one person kayak so we wouldn't move too fast and bang into things so I let her until we reached the wider section of the creek.
And then it was round the corner that we have came by and another 2.something km back to shore.
My arms just shut down a few times.
The girl behind was really sweet saying she can paddle us back and warning my arms going to hurt tomorrow but I was too embarrassed to just let her.
Also we were already the last ones trailing behind.
I'm really grateful that the girl behind put up with all my antics in the hours we spent out there.
I squealed with almost everything even just the guide coming close or collisions we sure to avoid or anything that made the kayak wobbled abit.
The view was awesome despite all that I went through. Even some rain on our way back.
There was this mirroring effect on the lake that was beautiful despite the cloudy day we had.
I'm so glad I did it although now I'm too tired to blog bout the kiwi centre I gung-ho went to after we got back from kayaking.
No comments :
Post a Comment