Canyoning. Eh... what now?

A couple of weeks back I was trying to get a group together to travel north to Aomori to take part in their annual Trivia weekend up there (which last year really was fantastic, even despite the crappy rainy season rubbish). Everyone whos anyone knows that sending an e-mail out to ALTs and expecting a response is like pulling teeth, so needless to say my plan failed miserably, and alas we would not be taking a 7 (8?) hour trek in the car for a big gaijin gathering for a session.
A few of the girls were talking about how it would clash with their plans for "canyoning" and needless to say I was a bit baffled. The description I got was, "You chuck yourself in a river and let the current take you as you bob along happy out with yourself". Eh...ok sign me up.

Well, ya big shower of liars. Nowhere in that description was there any mention of waterfalls and jumping from sizeable heights to plummit into swirling water nicknamed "The Washing Machine".

So with no knowledge of the afore mentioned, I, in ignorant bliss took off nursing the mother of all hangovers at 7 o clock on a Sunday morning with Paul, Kristen and her "brothers", Ros, Johanna, Natasha, Martin and Keiko, Sammy, and Kirsten to find out what Canyoning was all about...

So yeah, canyoning is negotiating your way down steep canyons by abseiling and jumping waterfalls and cliffs, cascading down natural chutes and swimming through crystal clear pools. Sounds nice, dunnit!?

CANYONS is an outdoor adventure centre down in Gunma and they offer you the "Refresh your mind, body, and soul adventure". You can book full/half days courses of canyoning, rafting, caving, downhill mountain biking, canadian kayaking or paragliding. The owner is a Kiwi guy whos been in Japan for over 10 years, speaks perfect Japanese and has a band of workers who are up for a laugh aswel. Our group went for the half day canyoning pakage and if you threw in an extra 2000yen, you had a guy with a camera follow you for the day getting you to give him your best goofy poses and not so posed "Oh holy shit I'm going to die" faces.

Thankfully though, there were no serious injuries sustained, although Martin did give it his best shot by spliting the skin open above his left eye when he was sliding down a 20m waterfall and skimmed his face off some rock. Nice. I paint a nice picture, don't I? Bet you're dying to have a go now...

We had a fantastic day at Fox Canyon scaring the shite out of ourselves and each other for that matter. I keep watching film that was taken of Natasha about to jump off the rock ledge over and over. I think it was the most frightening part of my day! Watching her go through psyching herself up, from down below having just done it myself and then watching her change her mind about jumping at the last minute and sort of slow motion stumbling off anyway... oh god.priceless.

We ended the day on a really randomly hilarious note where our guide had us all stand in a circle at the point in the river where the water was knee high, had us take off our helmets, looked around and said "Now, I want you to put your helmet in the water like this, and ... (cue insane throwing of water at the group) soak the people around you". And so began the massive water fight, even though we were all wet already (??) and I managed to smack Kristen in the face with my helmet. Sorry wench! So there you have it. I was very fun canyoing enjoyed. ;)