IAESTE Rafting Weekend

Whitewater rafting was really fun, but I must say it would have to be better in Australia purely because the river we rafted down consisted of 4 degree glacial water.

After wet-suiting up, we caught a bus up into the mountains where we were told about all the safety rules and told what to do for each of the commands from our guide. Our guide “Dougie” was from NZ and quite a funny lad.

The water was absolutely freezing. Our hands all went numb within a minute or so. After a few minutes it wasn’t so bad as you could no longer feel anything.

The first rapids were quite intense and lots of fun, and by the time we had to hop out (because there was a section that is Class 5) I was used to the water. The first section was down the Black Lütschine, and we had to hop out just after this river joined with the White Lütschine, which was just awesome when they met. Something to do with the rocks that the glaciers are on, one river is white(ish) and one is black(ish - more grey) but when they meet there is a distinct colour difference down the middle of the river until they slowly merge.

The first leg was Class 3, and the last section was Class 4, which was just insane fun. It didn’t last too long though and then the last bit was just cruising down the river towards the lake. Because the water level was so high we had to limbo under a few bridges which was cool, some were like 50cm between the bottom of the bridge and the water.

We all hopped out for a bit for a swim, which was fun for like 2 seconds and then just like going for a swim in ice. But being pushed by rapids felt cool, but we all hopped back in the raft as quick as we could.

We ended up coming out into one of the lakes, which is like 850m deep according to our guide. We put our hands in the water and you could feel an immediate change in temperature once we paddled out of the way of the river mouth.

Where we loaded the rafts back on there was a family of swans, with the parent swans trying to attack anyone that came too close. Was amazing to see.

We then went back to the rafting place for a free beer and some cheese.

After rafting we went back to the hostel for dinner, then to the coop (like Woolworths or Coles) to buy beer (in single cans). It feels so weird being able to drink in the street, especially as one stage there was a big group of us walking past some police with beers in hand.

We then went to some lobby/bar thing that I’m not really sure what it was, and there was a St.Bernard at the front. There was also a dog inside at the bar that was walking around looking for pats. Was quite strange to see.

Later on we heard some loud noise and everyone stopped talking to witness some random people walk in with giant cowbells - video on Facebook. We then realised that there was a wedding going on in one of the function rooms.

The next day we got a train up into the mountains to see a waterfall. The Trümmelbach Gletscherwasserfälle was easily one of the coolest things I’ve seen in my life.

It is where the water comes from for the white river that joined the river we rafted, and is 2 degrees, it comes from a glacier way up above although we couldn’t even see it from down the bottom. I think most of it comes from the Jungfrau.

After the waterfall, we went up to Mürren via cable car, and then hiked back down. It was a very cool walking track with random waterfalls the whole way down, but had very sore knees by the time I got to the bottom. It was also weird that at the bottom of the mountain it was 25 degrees, and when we hopped out of the cable car at the top it was like 17 degrees - felt like walking into air-con but outside.