Have you ever ever wished to expertise the fun and great thing about river rafting within the coronary heart of Iceland‘s Golden Circle? Since 1985 Arctic Rafting have been doing precisely that, enabling you to get pleasure from a perfectly-balanced mixture of serene canyons and adrenaline-pumping waves and rapids. Learn on to be taught extra about their hottest tour – River Enjoyable Rafting.
What to anticipate
You’ll raft down 7 kilometres of the Hvítá River fed by the Langjökull glacier, having fun with the view, while floating downstream in an inflatable raft, with just a few surprises alongside the best way.
Who’s it for?
The rapids are described as “straightforward to average”; this stretch of the river is graded 2+, with 1 being the gentlest and 6 being essentially the most excessive, so means it’s accessible for most individuals. No earlier rafting expertise is required, and kids from 11 years of age are welcome to take part. Simply be ready to get a little bit bit moist and a little bit chilly… however it’s all price it!
The placement
Drumboddsstaðir – aka Drumbó River Base – is the place all Arctic Rafting’s rafting excursions start and the house of their raft guides. It’s 98 kilometres from Reykjavik and takes about 1.5 hours by automotive to get there from the capital. Drumbó is conveniently situated on the route of the Golden Circle. The rafting takes place on the Hvítá River which comes from the Langjökull glacier – the second largest glacier in Iceland – and creates Gullfoss, one among Iceland’s most iconic waterfalls.
What’s included
The tour features a river rafting expertise down the river with an skilled information, in rafts that maintain 8-10 folks. All crucial rafting tools is offered, and that features wetsuit pants and splash prime, life-jacket, neoprene footwear, helmet and paddle.
Additionally included is a go to to the well-known Brúarhlöð canyon by way of the river, and a sizzling bathe and sauna after the chilly river journey. If you want, you may rent a GoPro with a Arctic Rafting-branded reminiscence card already loaded, which you get to maintain after the tour. Among the helmets include helmet mounts; alternatively, you may mount the GoPro to the entrance of the boat (and select to have it dealing with both forwards or backwards).
What to convey
All it’s essential to convey is a washing swimsuit (to be used beneath your wetsuit), a towel (for the bathe and sauna after the rafting), a heat prime layer to put on beneath the splash prime… and a way of journey!
The expertise
Our expertise started with a briefing from Julia on the Drumbó River Base. We have been suggested that we might go away issues like iPhones behind within the altering rooms as a result of… properly, they already had their very own. All the things was delivered in a enjoyable, jovial method, while nonetheless getting necessary security info throughout to us.
As soon as we’d modified and grabbed a paddle, it was time to get on to a bus. Two buses headed all the way down to the riverbank from the bottom, every pulling 4 rafts behind them – a journey of in all probability simply 10 minutes or so.
We then had a second briefing by the river because the guides transported the rafts to the waters edge. We have been talked by means of some primary security measures, once more all accomplished in a enjoyable but skilled method. The paddle needed to be held along with your hand over the T-bar on the finish, in any other case we’d find yourself with faces just like the guides. And we have been advised that the rope that runs across the outdoors of the raft known as the “oh, shit!” line as a result of, when you’re ever end up falling out of the raft, it’s essential to seize it and can likely shout “oh, shit!” within the course of!
With the briefing over, everybody was put into teams and assigned a information. We shared a raft with one other household with two women, and our information was Anshul. At first it was a really calm stretch of water, and we simply bought used to paddling on Anshul’s command.
However, earlier than lengthy, we have been taking over more difficult situations – rapids the place we being thrown a couple of bit extra and splashed with icy chilly meltwater!
It was al good enjoyable, although… and, after one set of rapids, we seemed again, solely to seek out our information was not sitting on the again of the boat!
Anshul was within the water and had grabbed the “oh, shit!” line!!! At first, we thought he was simply messing about… however he wasn’t. This had by no means occurred to him earlier than, he stated, as soon as he’d managed to clamber again on board.
Our journey continued down river, navigating rapids of various severity however by no means something too drastic, till we had a cease on the river financial institution at Brúarhlöð canyon. This was a time when folks might stretch their legs, benefit from the view and, in the event that they so wished, do a cliff leap into the icy river!
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And, after all, we have been silly sufficient to offer it a go. There was a mini-briefing for this – we have been merely advised to kind a queue if we wished to do it and, when our time got here, we have been to not dither… he would say “3… 2… 1… leap” and you should go there after which. This was truly a good suggestion because it stopped folks over-thinking it. The one different two items of recommendation have been to leap out so far as we might in order to not be near the rocks, and to land like a pencil for a extra comfy touchdown.
As we neared our flip to leap, one of many guides checked our lifejackets to make sure it was tight and safe, in order that it didn’t ‘experience up’ when hitting the water.
One other stood by to say “3… 2… 1… leap”…
…after which there have been guides, ensuring that you simply swam to the sting after leaping.
With all those that wished to leap having jumped, it was again on to the rafts for extra enjoyable. There weren’t many rapids, however loads of alternatives to lark about.
There was numerous splashing, guides pulling folks into the water, video games balacing on the inflatable sides of the raft, and so and so forth.
Different guides would name out “the place’s your information?” and we might look again in alarm, solely to see he was nonetheless there. We have been significantly gullible for this one, provided that our information had truly fallen out as soon as already!
Again on the river base, we had entry to sizzling showers and a sauna. Our subsequent cease after this journey was the Friðheimar tomato restaurant however Arctic Rafting additionally has its personal restaurant and bar on web site.
The entire tour had been nice enjoyable, and the guides actually entertaining and fascinating. It’s a very efficiently-run operation from begin to end and an expertise that we’d heartily advocate.
Planning a visit to Iceland your self? You may watch a video from our journey to Iceland right here. Footage from our journey with Arctic Rafting could be seen between 2m 22s and 3m 30s.
