SAC Orientation Camp II, White Water Rafting @ Sungai Kampar, 9th August 2008

**Special thanks to the assistant OCP, Papaya, who made this trip possible! Coz the real OCP was never around buakakaka....**

AOCP - Papaya

After a rigorous recruitment selection process, 18 new members were accepted into the Sky Adventure family, but sadly, only 13 remained. And from this 13, only 7 showed up for the second SAC Orientation Camp held this year.

The main activity of this orientation camp was a white water rafting event, something SAC has not done since 2005. This extreme outdoor activity was also extremely expensive, as the organizers of the orientation camp found. Even a simple package which consisted of only white water rafting could cost more than RM200 per person. Fortunately, we managed to secure a slot for RM150 per person with an old friend, Nomad Adventure.

And so, off we went, a jolly bus of 19 enthusiastic adventurers, to Sungai Kampar, Perak on 9th August 2008. We gathered as early as 7.00am in the morning at TBS and got ourselves acquainted with each other, especially the 7 newly selected members. The bus arrived at 7.30am and we headed to our first stop for the day at Sungkai.

7 new members + Alien

Along the way, everyone took turns to stand at the head of the bus to introduce themselves to the whole gang. To make things slightly less mundane, each of us had to say 2 things about ourselves that the people in the bus did not know about. One interesting comment that got everyone worked up was “I have a crush on someone in SAC”, courtesy of Thunder. Of course, one did not have to be a rocket scientist to guess who this secret crush was…

"I have a crush on someone in SAC"

We arrived at Sungai Klah Hot Spring at 9.30am. After paying the entrance fee of RM10 per person, we walked into the recreational area and took a while deciding which part of the hot spring we would like to explore first. Fortunately, we had Black with us, who had been there before and he became our helpful tour guide for the day. We visited the egg-boiling pool, then proceeded to soak our feet in a pool which was about 30 Celsius in temperature. After tiring of the heat, we then went in search of cold water and had fun sliding down a huge octopus slide. After that, it was back to another hot spring pool. This one was just nicely warm, like bathwater, and we soaked ourselves there until we decided we were sweating from the heat from the sun instead of from the pool. We dried ourselves as best as we can before piling back into the bus to stop for brunch at the Tapah rest area.

Boiled eggs anyone?

HongKong Msian feet

Giant octopus slide

Nemo the Macho

Ya-Hoo!!

We then met up with Jamal from Nomad Adventure at the Gopeng toll at about 12.45pm. We followed him in our bus to the car park area at Gua Tempurung. We changed back into our wet clothes and applied copious amounts of sunscreen, while the slightly sight-impaired Sky Adventurers created a very attractive device from rubberbands to tie their glasses to their faces.

Very attractive device from rubberbands

Group photo =)

Last week’s waterfall hunt had us herded into Wolf’s 4WD like war refugees. This time, we were like cows instead, being made to stand in a green truck for our 30-minute drive to the rafting area. There were more leaves and twigs to dodge this time, but we sure loved the rambutans that got in our way and grabbed some as our appetizer for the rafting ahead. Thankfully, there were no durian trees low enough for us to avoid.

Cows SACians

SIM AR!!

Rambutans anyone?

Once at the riverbank of Sungai Kampar, another Nomad crew called Hafizi gave us a safety briefing for the activity ahead. We then had to float and paddle a little to get to another side of the river, where our rafts were waiting for us. Then we were off in our rafts for the white water rafting experience!

White water confidence swimming

The cute yellow raft that I (Alien) was sitting in was called Sponge Bob Square Pants. Along with me were the Nottie, Wolf, Papaya and his friend Ken. We also had a cute Australian guide called Sam who enlightened us along the way about Sungai Kampar and even told us about a ghostly encounter he had on the river. The river was a Grade 3 one, and there were a few rapids along the 7km stretch that had us holding on tightly to the rafts for dear lives, and for good reason too because some of us almost fell right off.

Sponge Bob Square Pants

WWR

For those of you who do not know what it’s like, it can be described as a roller coaster ride. But take out the safety belts and instead of a track on which your little car rides safely on, imagine rocks and rushing currents, ready to catapult you off the unfriendly surface of jagged rocks and drown you in the strong tides. Actually, it wasn’t all that scary. Quite honestly, yours sincerely was a wee bit disappointed with the calmness of the river. The guide had forewarned us of quiet waters and not much rapids. We even capsized ourselves on purpose for the fun of it. But it was still a good white water rafting experience.

Self-capsized raft

Now we can proudly say that we’ve come out unscathed from the waters of Sungai Kampar and are ready for bigger challenges. Hopefully, we will be able to raft on a Grade 4 or higher river some time in the future.