Whitewater rafting at National Whitewater Centre Wales
I have done a lot of kayaking in the past, but until recently I’d never tried whitewater rafting.
We went to the National Whitewater Centre in Wales. The centre is Canolfan Tryweryn on the Upper Tryweryn river near Bala in Wales. After getting changed into a wetsuit, buoyancy aid and helmet we had a short training session / safety briefing on dry land. We then loaded into a mini-bus which drove us to the get in point.
We had a quick recap of the instructions on the river before we reached the rapids. We then followed the instructions from our instructor which involved paddling, holding on and “getting down”, which kept us safely in the raft. We did however get very wet with a complete soaking through one of the falls and paddling back into the stopper to give those in front an extra drenching.
We ran the river four times in total each of which involved something different (going backwards / extra drenching / even faster). By the end we were exhausted, but it was a great fun.
I had my own Go Pro camera which I’ve used to put together the video below. It’s worth remembering that the GoPro was attached to the top of my helmet, so if the water looks like it’s getting close to the camera then it was already over all our heads.