The Kiwi Bushman

As Megan mentioned in her recent Christmas Vacation Part III post, our heli-hike at the Franz Josef Glacier was cancelled over X-mas break, leaving Megan, M and I in search of a fun activity to fill our day. It was quite a scramble to find anything that wasn't already booked between the general busyness of glacier region during the holiday and the dozens of other travelers with cancelled hikes that day.

One activity which caught our eye was the Eco Rafting whitewater rafting day trips, but unfortunately we couldn't get anyone to pick up the office or mobile phone numbers provided; we even tried stopping at the i-Site, who kindly placed a few calls on our behalf with no joy. After wandering around for a bit, with all hope virtually lost, I decided to make one last attempt and called the Eco Rafting mobile ... and got through! The line had a lot of static, but I made out:

"We're out on the river right now! How many people do you have? What sizes are you? Okay, meet us in Hari Hari at the Pukeko Tea Room at 1:30, we'll be in the black 4x4." click 

Okay... says me. "Hey M&M, we're driving up to Hari Hari and going rafting!" So we hop in the car and drive 1 hour up to Hari Hari (pop. 348), locate the Pukeko Tearoom, and browse some light country reading (see below) while sunscreening up for for our rafting trip.

US friends: let me know if I can look into a subscription for you.

Right on schedule, the two fellas (Josh & Cam) pull up in their truck and immediately make quite an impression. Excellent beards and excellent chatter. Also excellent: learning how to play chicken on a one lane bridge, and close calls with puddle splashing hikers (don't worry, we stopped to chat with them about how we would have splashed them if the timing was right, but they got off lucky)!

We were pleasantly surprised to find that it was just going to be M, M and I on the river with the Josh's buddy, Cam, as our fearless leader. Josh is the owner of Eco Rafting, and would be driving the truck down to the end of the river to pick us up a few hours down the line at the end of our trip. As we got suited up, we heard from Cam about Josh's YouTube channel (and persona): Josh James Kiwi Bushman. A few highlights (there are many more on the YouTube page, encourage you to visit and subscribe):

Josh James the Kiwi Bushman:

"The old lady took the lads down to the local fishing hole and came back with this stonking great eel, Charlie insisted we eat it for dinner so I thought I would show you fullahs how to skin ye old Eel."

Our rafting guide, Cam, giving the Kiwi Bushman a hand with his gun review series:

Apparently Josh will be appearing on the Discovery Channel (or similar?) in 2015, so keep your eyes peeled!! (Definitely will highlight on this blog if it happens.)

Once out on the water, we hit a few decent rapids, but overall it was a reasonably tame trip (as we had been warned). These guys typically do much more exciting multi-day rafting and hunting trips, where you take a helicopter or drive into the deep bush and spend days making your way back out, but unfortunately we'll have to save that adventure for a later date! It was definitely an awesome day, and all the better due to our discovery of the Bushman. I know M is building up his legend back in the US and hopes to make it back for a long-haul trip at some point, which would undoubtedly be memorable. 

Top: low fog over Franz Josef Glacier, leading to our rafting trip. BL: Suiting up with Cam. BR: Heading into the river.

The Bushman winning at life.

The fog might have been low, but it was a perfect day out on the river.