Peaks and Places | Travel and Adventure Blog

While my sister and her fiancé (Shelby and Logan) were in town, we had a pretty loose itinerary, mostly just having a plan for where we wanted to end up each night. They were staying in Airbnb’s (which we joined in on a couple to spend some more time with them), so the destinations were planned well in advance. A few of the activities that we knew they wanted to do were golfing, rafting, hiking, and looking for seashells on some of the beaches. Eric and I, forever on our strict budget here, were definitely hoping we could stay on the cheaper side with some of these activities (i.e., lean heavily towards the hiking/seashell detours). On this particular day, we were driving from Tauranga to Taupo, with a plan to stop at several places in Rotorua along the way.

We stayed in Mount Manganui the previous night, which is a very pretty little beach town just south of the Coromandel, outside of Tauranga. We actually hiked Mount Manganui that morning, which was a really nice, but steep, hike up to some pretty awesome views. Knowing it was a pretty big day, we had gotten an early start, and by the time we finished hiking it was around 10am. After having a little coffee, we stopped and grabbed some seafood at a little shop near Tauranga. We got some fried bread rolls and seafood salad to have for lunch, and some prawns and scallops to make a seafood alfredo dish for dinner. After this, we got on the road and headed to Rotorua.

As we got near Rotorua, we passed a sign for a waterfall, and decided to go check it out. Little did we know this would change the trajectory of our entire day.

Okere Falls sits at the inlet of the Kaituna River, and is about 20 feet tall. There was a nice path that let us hike to an overlook, and also down right near the base of the falls. To get own to the base of the falls, there were some steps, which to our surprise led down into a cave, which wrapped around to an opening, giving you a good view of the falls. The falls had a TON of water going over it, we could not only hear the water but also feel the water going over. This was about the time that Logan started to ramp up his rafting pitch. We had passed a rafting outfitter on the road leading to the carpark, and Logan was already looking up times.

We hiked around the area a little more after this and saw even more falls and little pools, which made Logan only want to do it even more, and eventually…Eric caved. I however, was a little more hesitant, as I haven’t ever truly been white water rafting before (we went on a baby rafting trip with Shelby in Glenwood Springs, Colorado a couple years ago), and it was going to be a whopping $140 per person (that’s like, two weeks worth of food!). After a little more convincing, and physically going to the outfitters and asking them about the conditions (which they said were the best they can be), the four of us (Eric and Logan) decided to book the 1:30pm trip.

At 1:30pm, we were ready to go. After getting fit and changed into wetsuits, a fleece, and a water jacket, we headed out for a little training session. They briefed us that we would be going over three waterfalls, all class 5 rapids (whatever that means). The middle waterfall was the largest, Okere Falls, which is the highest commercially rafted waterfall in the world. They taught us how to tuck and hold on so we didn’t fall out of the boat. They also told us what to do in case the raft flipped…and by this time I was officially freaking out.

It was the four of us, our guide, and one additional person, a girl from Australia who had literally been on the same trip yesterday, and decided it was so fun she wanted to come back and do it again. Hearing that definitely helped ease my nerves a little. Once they went over the basics with us, we loaded the rafts onto the bus trailer, and headed onto the bus to be dropped off at our drop in spot.

The start of the trip was pretty easy, and was a good way for us to get our feet wet (literally). We did some practice paddling, and some practice ‘Get Down!’s where we would prepare to go over the falls. The guide seemed pretty happy with our group as a whole, and that definitely helped raise my confidence level a bit. That all being said, it still felt like we were thrown into that first waterfall pretty quickly. Eric and I were at the front of the boat for this, and as we went over the falls (tucking very well, I might add) the front of the raft went completely under the water, soaking just the two of us. Both of us got a mouthful (and noseful) of water, but we stayed in the boat! This is when the nerves went away and I actually started to have fun and enjoy myself (much to Eric’s relief).

After this, we did a little intermission from rafting, and got to go down a ‘water slide.’ This was really just us jumping out of the boat, and the current pulling us down a couple little rapids and back towards the boat. We had to swim a little to make it back to the boat, and the water was absolutely frigid, but it was a lot of fun. Then, it was back into the boat for the next waterfall: Okere.

According to our guide, Okere is the waterfall that roughly one out of every ten boats flip over on, so we would be fine. Unfortunately, karma’s a bitch and we had been laughing at one of the less competent boats in our tour the entire trip (our guide included). Their boat, dubbed the non-swimmers by both our boat and the rescue kayak, did not flip when they went over the waterfall, but ours did. When the boat flipped, it felt like I was underwater for a lot longer than I probably actually was. My paddle go ripped out from my hand and somehow (miraculously) I popped up underneath the raft. I could hear someone else under the raft with me, but I had definitely lost Eric somewhere along the way (but someone was kicking me and I have my suspicions…). The raft suddenly flipped off of me, which I later learned was our guide, climbing onto the raft to flip it back over, and we all reconvened to get back into the boat.

After this little bit of excitement, the rest of the trip went according to plan. We did a second little out of the raft waterslide, where this time we went over a slightly larger rapid, and met back up with our raft at the end. Back in the raft, we hit our final waterfall, which ended up being a breeze after our excitement with Okere. The rest of the trip consisted of some smaller rapids, but it was a lot of fun.

Overall, the trip was an absolute blast, and we were very glad that we spent the money to go, and especially glad we got to share this experience with Shelby and Logan. We had wanted to raft while we were in New Zealand, and this was a great time to cross it off our bucket list. It was also a good reminder that while it is important to stick to our budget, it is also important to go off budget from time to time.