Canoeing With Teenagers......on the Wanganui River

Heidi V's Page

	Heidi V aged 15

Drifting down the Wanganui River we were admiring the scenery. In fact we got a bit too involved in the scenery, especially in one particular waterfall. It was coming out of all these ferns and moss.

As we were going past we were ohhhing and ahhhing over it and completely oblivious to the fact that in front of us in the middle of the rapid was a big log.

At the last minute I turned around and saw it. Mum quickly started ordering "paddle right, paddle right!" Once it was obvious that we weren't going to go past it on that side it was "paddle left, paddle left!"

Well this straightened us up nicely and we hit it straight on and stuck on it.

The front of the canoe was wedged on this log but the back was still going with the rapid, so we started to turn around and as we turned we tipped so far that I was leaning with one hand on the log to stop the canoe from turning over.

Once we were facing backwards the front came off the the log and we were away.

Unfortunately we had new problems cause the canoe was now travelling backwards.

After a lot of splashing, yelling and hard paddling we managed to turn the canoe back round the right way again.

Then we had a chance to look around and see if anyone had seen us hit the only log in that rapid.

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