Our hiking stop was about 2 hours north-east of home. We pulled into the Alexandra Bridge Provincial Park and walked a short way down to the now-disused Cariboo Wagon Road bridge over the Fraser River (btw, apparently Cariboo refers to the area rather than the animal). The others placed some pennies on the railway track we crossed over on the way, but no trains came by during the short time we were there.
The Old Alexandra Bridge was awesome! You could see through it to the muddy Fraser River below, and the view up and down the river, with snow-specked mountains in the distance, was very pretty. The walking trail didn't continue very far over the far side of the bridge, so we soon continued on our way. Here are some pics of the bridge and park...
L-R below: Myla, me, Ben, Angharad, Deanne (an Aussie!), Stuart, Nicole.
By about 12:30pm we had arrived at the REO Rafting Resort, which felt like it was in the middle of nowhere as the last 12kms or so were dirt roads. I think calling it a "resort" is slightly misleading too. ;) At 1pm we ate a yummy lunch and then got fitted out with wetsuits and helmets. Unfortunately the usual rafting photographer didn't accompany the trip that day, so the only photo I have of the river we rafted is the one below, showing the view from the lunch deck of the (comparatively tame) last few metres of the 13kms we were about to raft down!
After a 20 minute bus ride and a scary safety talk by the German rescue kayaker, it took us a few hours to raft back to the resort along the 13kms of level 3 and 4 rapids, with a snack stop and a couple of leg-stretching stops along the way. The first kilometre was optional, as they warned us that falling out may have required the ability to swim to the shore unaided - these two rapids were called the Rose Garden and the Meat Grinder...! But nobody in our group piked out, and none of us fell out either. :)
The rafting was absolutely awesome! Because there were 7 of us, we had a boat all to ourselves (there were 3 or 4 other boats, mostly filled with a stag party). Our guide was a wonderfully ocker Aussie bloke - Macca from Mission Beach - so our boat had 4 Aussies, 3 Canadians, and one Welshwoman. :) Two of the girls had never rafted before but we soon came to the conclusion that ours was the best boat - the fastest and the one that got into the least trouble! And everyone had an absolute blast. :D
The most exciting part of the trip was when we rode over a large rock that was protruding out of the river with water cascading over it, and we got stuck at the base of the rock due to the pull of the water back towards the rock. Despite all sorts of jumping from side to side and piling up at the front of the boat, nothing would shift us. The 5 degree snow run-off water was cascading over us and very quickly filled the boat completely up, and the river actually started flowing across the top of it (at our waist level)! We could tell Macca was a bit worried, and one of the other boats had stopped just ahead and was looking on helplessly.
In the midst of this drama, Angharad, who had diligently stuck to the advice given during the safety talk to never let go of the paddle, suddenly held up her yellow plastic paddle, which was bent at an alarming angle! Macca said "this is what we call a boomerang"... and when he tried to bend it back into shape, it snapped! So we quickly ascertained that Angharad would get to keep it as a unique souvenir of her first rafting experience. And then it was back to trying to remove ourselves from the sucking rock and submerged boat situation...
Eventually Nicole got sick of it and suggested pushing against the rock with a paddle. Ben did so, and voila! Instantly free!! So Macca gave Angharad a spare paddle and we continued on our way. And he declared his love for Nicole and her brilliant idea throughout the rest of the afternoon. Apart from Myla's fingers turning white and losing all feeling, nothing else too eventful happened (and Myla did eventually warm up!).
Here are some photos of our boatload after we arrived back at the resort - note the souvenir paddle!
L-R below: Stuart, Myla, Angharad, Nicole, Macca, Deanne, Ben, me.
And what we actually looked like DURING the ride...
On the way home, we saw a few deer and stopped for tea in the town of Hope. And that was our first real excursion into the Canadian countryside!
