An early start for canyoning, we left the hotel with our guides and picked up another three visitors, two English and another sydney-sider. We headed up the motorway to the mountains and where the river starts to run.
We trekked down a small path before stopping practicing abseiling techniques. One of the few times I've been told to jump higher while abseiling, normally I get told off for jumping. From there we continued down to the river and had our first waterslide over a small drop, head first. Dear god that water was cold, sorry 'refreshing'. From there we climbed up to an abseil point of about 8m and walked/jumped down then walked back up to meet the rest of the group. We then headed to another this one 15m with a shear face landing in water.
We crossed the river and headed through for about 20min crossing the river here and there before ending up at one point where we free swim/float through to another small drop, this one where you go feet first. We all went down that a few times, it's very disorientating underwater when it's swirling and bubbly and going up your nose at decent speed. From there we then walked to the waterfall; this was our final abseil for the day. The whole thing was probably 10-15m high (I might be wrong but it felt high) and we start our decent from near the middle of the falls. You have to inch your way down as its incredibly slippery, in some cases I just went with the small slides I was feeling. The water at that pressure and speed stings against your legs I was almost at the final 4m (where you free fall) when I hit a patch algae and slipped and landed against the rocks, most of the impact was taken by my left knee (which I found to have already bruised once I was out of the river). Thankfully our guide had given us tips on how to get back to standing so I managed to get back up and get to the 4m mark then free fall. I managed to push off the rocks enough to clear the worst of the water wash from the waterfall. After climbing out and inspecting my knee we watched as the last of our group did the decent then we had lunch on the rocks by the waterfall, and watched a pair of older men do the decent after us.
Once lunch had been finished (a small feast, might I add) we headed over to the final spot where there are two free jumping levels 7m or 11m. Nicola jumped the 11m twice while my knee was starting to ache and the blisters from yesterday were stinging so I declined to jump. We headed back early as we had to shower and catch our flight. But the people were lovely and they took care of us. I will have some photos, as (the only guy) the other Australian had photos of most of us taken by the guides on his camera.
After showering and doing the final arranging of our bags we headed out to the airport and got our flight (on an ATR72). We were picked up and driven to our hostel, checked in. Our hostess was very helpful in suggesting good tailors (one has been known to refund if work is not good enough). We then headed out and explored the old quarter and found some street Cao lâo (pork, noodles, vege - only found in Hoi An). Then headed back for an early night.
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