Queenstown- Whitewater Sledging

When Jamie first suggested that we spend our Saturday “White Water Sledging”, I was a bit skeptical. She kayaks down class five rapids on a regular basis, so I wasn’t sure that her idea of “not-that-hard” and “fun” would be the same as mine. However, after considering that Queenstown is one of the only places in the world you can do this, I committed to it.

Now I bet you don’t know what river sledging is. I sure didn’t before I came to New Zealand. To put it simply, it’s like boogie boarding down class one to three rapids, but don’t worry- you have handles. You also wear wet suits (rivers are really cold, in case you were wondering), fins (to help you go in the direction you want to go, i.e. away from rocks), and helmets (for when your kicking fails and you crash into rocks, like I almost did on multiple occasions. Almost.).

When we actually arrived at the river, we were given a short briefing and our gear followed by a short tutorial in the water. One of the first things we had to do was flip our sledges and recover them. Then we had to practice barrelrolling with our sledges so that we would learn not to let the board go when the nice icy water hits your face. Then we were on our way into the main river flow to have an adventure.

I think it took all of about 15 seconds for Pavil (guide #1) to have to save me from crashing into some boulders. Although once I got the hang of it, swimming straight into the waves and riding  through the rougher water was a total blast. We had the opportunity to do the whole run a second time and “play around”, which I used to practice barrel rolling through every wave I could.

I really wasn’t expecting much out of sledging- I figured that it would be fun, but that I would enjoy canyon-jumping and kayaking Milford Sound more, but this may have been my favorite thing that I did in New Zealand. It was challenging, but definitely not impossible to get reasonably good at in the time you have. I also can’t remember the last time my abs were that sore, so I must have gotten a good workout! I feel like I end almost every post with this but whatever… if you ever have a chance to go whitewater sledging, absolutely 100% DO IT. You will love it.