Robert Houben

This is a bit of what happened on our August 2004 camping trip. Matthew had his friend Trevor over for this one.

Probably the highlight of the camp was river rafting.

Having been here in July, we already knew about the great rafting on the Allouette river in Maple Ridge, BC. So Matthew and I had bought an inner tube. As you can see, it was a bit on the small side for two boys.

Two boys, scudding down the Allouette river, on a tube designed for 1. Laughing, nearly tipping over in the rapids, bumping over rocks.

One boy falls off, the other frantically trying to stop it, giggling. Then waiting until the other catches up again, wading through the rushing, rocky water, clambering back on, and off they go again. Lovely, delicious, unstructured time.

They were having such a blast, I wondered what it would be like if they had two tubes, so I went into town and got another raft. (I couldn't find any decent tubes, but I found a supposedly 3-man raft: Tip Canadian Tire has the most consistent selection!)

The next day we discovered the best stretch of the river. We'd walk to the Rock (I forget its name), and then raft down to Davidson's pool. Here's Matthew coming down the rapids into Davidson's Pool. Someone told me its about 35 feet deep. When we got there in the morning, about 2 minutes after the boys left, I saw something coming up out of the water. It was a scuba diver!

Here's Trevor following Matthew on the rapids. It's a pretty wild ride!

It took about 10 to 15 minutes to make the round trip, from walking to the rock, to arriving back at the pool and getting out of the water.

		Here's the actual top of Davidson's pool. It isn't too deep here, the really deep part is to the right of the picture. The boys are just drifting here. I did manage one trip on the tube, with the two of them using the raft (shortly after getting the raft, the day before.) Unfortunately, the boys flipped the raft and Matthew lost one of his sandals. I rescued the other, but wound up throwing it away. It was interesting, looking for his sandal. We found hiking boots, thongs, all kinds of footwear, generally in ones. I guess ours was a common problem!

Here they are, slowly making their way back to shore. Trevor's roughly over the spot where I saw the scuba divers come up. It drops off sharply right about where he is.

So, we ended our rafting with lunch. We'll have to make it back, first time we have a warm, sunny day off from school and work.

(Footnote: It started raining at the end of August and never really stopped - it'll have to be next year!)