Jump in a yellow raft, because it's time to splash down the river!

Penrith Whitewater Stadium was the site of the Sydney 2000 Olympics slalem canoe and kayak events.

The stadium is located an hour west of Sydney near the base of the Blue Mountains, which in and of itself is a brilliant place to visit for a few days. It's bizarre it's labelled a stadium. There are no bleachers and it isn't a playing field. I don't get it. And it isn't a river. It's the only artificial whitewater facility in the Southern hemisphere.

When the Olympics came to Sydney, I was seventeen years old and was going through somewhat of an existential crisis. Despite much of the piss-taking in my writing, I don't say that lightly. I had an awful time during my last years of high school and some of the earlier years, too. Bullying is real and people can be absolute scumbags.

I do find it interesting to look at the structures and the flowing water and imagine the joy and elation of gold medals won in that stadium. All the while, I was going through mental turmoil hundreds of kilometres away. This is the sort of shit that churns through my mind when everyone is having fun. I like being human. What a fucking ride. Who needs rafts when we can churn up this sort of shit in our own heads, right? Back to the day's activities.

I didn't go in the water.

Neither did Hayley.

Surprise!

This time round, we shouted our dads out to a fun day. Hayley and I bought vouchers for them for Father's Day last year. Hayley's brother also got in on the action. Let's just say that we had sort of forgotten to organise a day for them. Neither would have booked it themselves. This is Hayley's specialty. The expiry date was fast approaching and the pressure was on to make it out there. Thankfully, the weather was a absolutely brilliant.

Hayley and I did the course a couple of years ago for my birthday in early Summer. That was an awesome time! Hayley paired it with a session at ifly indoor skydiving just up the road (also in Penrith) then we later went into the heart of Sydney for a meal at one of our favourite vegan restaurants - Bodhi!

This time, we really just wanted to be there while they had their fun together. Besides, we have trips to the Gold Coast, Port Douglas and to possibly New York City over the next nine months. We got priorities, yo!

There's the mandatory safety briefing prior to getting into the raft, taking about 10 or 15 minutes.

If you get the opportunity to come out and raft, you'll love the amount of surrounding bushland. We really are spoiled in Australia. Sydney is one of the worst cities for urban sprawl (too many single storey structures that go on endlessly toward the horizon), but we still manage to have vast tracts of either cleared land (fucking 19th century farming policies) or forested tracts. When you come away from the city, the sky begins to get massive. This all adds to the experience.

Mind you, when you're sitting in a raft about to get tossed into the frothing water, you're not paying as much attention to the scenery as the onlookers (me).

The course is shaped like a 'U', is 320 metres long and has a height difference of 5.5 metres. From the experience that Dad, Stu and Dean had, they didn't do anything we didn't. Not that I expected it. You get about five or six laps around the course and some time in the "washing machine". The raft is suspended in a patch of water where the occupants lean left and right in the raft in order to maintain it's position. The goal is to soak everyone.

Occasionally, people fall out. Another group had a few overenthusiastic members that basically threw themselves overboard. Considering the concrete everywhere and that the course isn't particularly deep, it's not the wisest move. Everyone's wearing life jackets, and they've already been briefed so the operators have covered their arses.

Emptied every day.

While I was in the kiosk getting a coffee, a siren sounded. It's the one you'd expect if there was an emergency - someone hurt or a fire possibly. This is the alert that the course is being drained. It seemed that within just a few minutes, the upper pool was drained completely, showing the naked nether regions of the concrete river.

I was saying earlier to Hayley how much I wanted to see the course empty. I think it's a weird satisfaction being able to see it empty. It's like seeing the cavity left after 'jiggers' (flesh eating fleas) have been extricated from a human foot with a scalpel. Suffice to say, my urge would have been far more fulfilled had I walked the length of the course to see the whole thing rather than just the top pool. Next time, maybe?

All the best,

Nick.

All content is original.

If you've enjoyed my content, please UPVOTE, FOLLOW AND COMMENT.

This article was not self-upvoted nor have I been paid to promote any products or services.