On Wednesday 16th and Thursday 17th, Sam and I headed out of Pokhara with a company called Adrenaline Rush to try some canyoning and white water rafting along the Marsyangdi River. Neither of us were brave enough to take a camera (in case they were damaged) so unfortunately we don’t have any photos of this experience. We were put on a tourist bus and dropped off in Mugling, a very inauspicious market town, and told to wait by the road until the Adrenaline Rush guys came to collect us. After 20 minutes, Sam and I started to worry as no one had come yet. But soon enough a guy in a wet suit ran across the road and bundled us into the back of a pick up truck. We were taken straight to start canyoning along with 5 others who were on Day 2 of their trip. We slipped and abseiled down waterfalls, went down rockslides and jumped into plunge pools for around 3 hours. I ended up bashing my elbow on one rockslide and it still hasn’t fully healed now. I must have bashed it pretty bad – it certainly hurt a lot. 3 hours was plenty of time for me as I had blisters all over my hands from rope burns. We then had lunch before dropping off the others at various bus stops and heading to Camp Amsterdam where we would be sleeping for the night. It was as we were crossing the bridge to get to the camp and the wind was blowing that I realised I had left my North Face jacket on the bus in the morning. I called up Arun and Adrenaline Rush contacted the bus company to try and get hold of the driver. When they couldn’t reach him I lost hope of ever seeing my jacket again but Arun called about an hour later to say that the driver had my jacket and would deliver it to Arun in Pokhara the next day – I must be one of the luckiest travellers ever!! The camp was lovely and we each had a tent to ourselves. There was only one other person there – a Canadian girl doing 8 days of kayaking. We had a really lovely dinner and I headed to bed early as I was being eaten alive by mosquitoes and my elbow was throbbing. We were in the truck by half 8 the next morning. It took a long time to blow up the raft and as we were the only ones, the guys from Adrenaline Rush had to call their friends so we would have enough people to paddle. We were in the water by 10am and we spent 3 hours jumping in the water, trying to balance on the raft, and sailing down rapids before we pulled into a beach for lunch. It was so much fun and I couldn’t wait to try the Grade 4 rapid we had in store for us after lunch. I didn’t want the day to end – I enjoyed the rafting a lot more than the canyoning – but at half 4 we were on a bus headed back to Pokhara. When we arrived back at Arun’s hotel I was absolutely exhausted and went straight to bed without eating a thing!
On Friday 18th I decided to go paragliding and it was one of the best experiences of my life. I can’t wait to try sky diving now – sorry Mum! We soared high above the Phewa Tal and the views were stunning. We even tried some acrobatics which were awesome and reminded me of my days as an RAF Cadet when we would try to fit in as many cool tricks as possible into one flight! After he had had lunch, Sam left to start trekking Annapurna Base Camp. Bronwyn also finished her trek today and we had a late lunch together at Mike’s and as we were eating Julian walked past. We all decided to have dinner together with Oscar who was also in Pokhara although Bronwyn and I weren’t actually hungry as we had only just eaten. We then headed to Busy Bee for a few drinks but as soon as it started raining we all headed off to our various hotels having said our goodbyes.
