White water rafting!

We were all excited at the prospect of going white water rafting as i believe every member of the team had never been before. So what a great place to go, the source of the Nile in Uganda!

3 members of the team Debbie, Helen and John were not so keen on white water rafting so they decided to go to an island to see the chimpanzees, awww. The football coach from tigers decided to join us on the day and his name is Alfred along with a freind of Paul Peterson also called Paul. We set off early around 7.15 in the morning and stopped off at a couple of places to pick up more adrenaline junkies yet the journey seemed to take a little while but we did have an interesting road side service stop where bar-b-q sticks, mattoki and drinks were available from some locals. We arrived at the source of the Nile and we had our first glimpse of what was ahead. First impressions were that it looked quite tame however this wasn't to be...



We arrived at the centre and we were greeted by an American man who gave us our safety briefing which lasted only 5 minutes! We then grabbed our equipment consisting of a life jacket, oar and helmet and off we went. Our "tour guide" was a Ugandan man named Jeffery who told us it was his second day and there was an instant response from the team of "really" then followed by laughs as he told us he had 10 years experience phew!! We all hopped in the boat and off we went for some quickfire training, this included forward paddle, back paddle, get down, back on the job and the capsize! We all moved to one side of the boat and Jeffery tipped us! It was a pretty scary moment when i realised my head was stuck on the boat but i soon found and air pocket and i was fine, some of the others then joined me under the boat and smiles all round. we then had our first real challenge of getting back on the boat, which was surprisingly difficult! So with a little help we all got on the boat and tackled our first rapid! No problem we went straight through and we were joined by the safety team who explained what we had to do if the boat capsized. We then approached a grade 3 rapid which is mid difficulty and Jeffery told us to get down and with that the boat capsized!! A lot of splashing and a bit of panic was soon forgotten as we came up pretty quickly and some of us still had a hold on the boat so all of the shipmates were fine. We all got back in and carried on towards the next series of rapids all still feeling fine other than me as i was quite nervous about the idea of a grade 5 rapid! our team chanted "rafting the white Nile" as we approached the grade 5 rapid known as the juice bowl and our instructor said we will flip, so reluctantly we agreed although some of the team didn't know it was planned!! We approached these enormous waves and Jeffery screamed "get down", so we got into safety positions but this wasn't going to save us as we hit a gigantic wave and the last sight i remember was seeing the team mid air and the boat flipping and with that splash and darkness! Most of the team had their eyes open however i didn't but the force was enough to realise we were really deep and possibly in a spot of bother. It was the slowest and scariest moment of my life! Then i reached the surface and the feeling of relief was incredible and i took a massive intake of air to only be hit by another wave and go back under! I soon surfaced and i let the rapids take me down to the boat. The fear was clear on a few members of the team which included me, Chris, Jono. We looked around the shaken crew and some of the comments were: "That just wasn't fun", "we were under for such a long time" and " that was a near death experience". Dave however loved it and was urging us for more yet the team more or less agreed we simply didn't fancy that experience again!! We then went for lunch on the private island which was lovely and the meal was really nice. It included potato salad, cheese, meat, sandwiches, fruit, garnish,veg and some refreshing drinks. A huge lizard was also on the island to greet us which was quite pleasant. Dave, Mike and Paul Ps freind also named Paul went off with some guys from India as they were keen to flip the boat again so they took the wild route. Myself, Paul, Simon, Jono, Chris, Will, Alfred and Jeffery then set off for a long journey or two across flat water so we were all quite tired by this point so Jeffery proved himself as a strong individual and paddled on his own across these huge areas of flat waters! We then tucked into lollipops and applied more suncream as some of the team were starting to look like lobsters! We then finally arrived at some rapids and Jeffery told us we would be going down a waterfall, scary!! We tackled the waterfall and went down backwards and despite the team falling on the person behind them we stayed upright and in the success we shouted the team chant "rafting the white Nile!!". We then saw Dave's raft complete the waterfall but Paul did fall out. We then went across the rapids and down a grade 4 which went well and then we chilled out for a bit before another long journey to the final set of rapids! We stopped for a toilet break on an island for another huge lizard to come flying out of the bush and scare us all, as if we hadn't been terrified enough for one day!!!
We approached the final rapids which were known as bad place and 5050 and we all left the raft and walked around the grade 6 as these are too dangerous to raft through. We decided to take the tamer option and go for the 5050 as there was less chance of a capsize! I told the team i really didn't want to flip the boat again and i said nervously to them if Jeffery says paddle hard then do it as hard as you can! We got in and we headed straight for the bad place but the team put in every last bit of energy in and we steered clear of the bad place and went through 5050 and despite a few heavy impacts we managed to stay upright and raft the hardest part of the rapids! Great success!! Jeffery celebrated by diving out of the boat and we all congratulated him and each other on a great days rafting. We then headed to the finish point and walked up the hill to the cold sodas and beers to top off a brilliant day. We took a few photos and then Mike, Paul and Dave arrived and we were told Dave decided to bail out of the boat and throw himself into the rapids!! The boat did flip after this so we let Dave off for a potentially risky maneuver! We were all very tired but we had enjoyed the day and we joked about the juice bowl incident but it will never be forgotten, those scary moments deep in the Nile!!

We then got back to the hotel and we all exchanged our stories of the white water rafting and the chimpanzee island!!

Darren Williams