Now THAT's a good day of fun.

I signed up for another riversourcing activity. Riversourcing is when you follow a river or creek upstream, crossing it or climbing to get to the source. It's also a term I coined, because I honestly don't know the actual name of the activity. If anyone knows, do tell me.

Anyhow, the organisation hosting the activity was iClimb, the wall-climbing centre I kind of frequent. I already knew and liked the instructors, so, short of a disaster, the day was guaranteed to be fun-filled. I had pulled two coworkers along, and one brought his girlfriend and 3 of her friends, too. The two on-line registrants had cancelled (probably figuring it'd be too cold), so it turned out to be a private outing. =D

We set out at 08:40. Last week's typhoon had engorged the rivers and washed out some of the roads, let loose a few rock slides, so getting to creek was a heart-stopping event in itself. For non-off-roading vehicles, the typhoon water runoff trickling over sloped roads made some segments challenging, quite reminiscent of driving in snow back home. A few undercarriage scraps and heart attacks later, we unloaded equipment and trekked down to the waterside.

This creek was a little less "exciting" than the one I was at in mid-September. The terrain had more climbing, a bit less river-crossing. The increased water flow made it more dangerous to cross, too, though. But still it was fun, and as anticipated, there was lots of egging on and horsing around. I was the target of plenty of it, but it was all in good fun.

I was also the crazy one, the only one to play in the cold water at our lunch stop. The 10m waterfall, normally only 2m wide, had widened to 5 or 6m, and the pool at the bottom had overflowed. I jumped in (with life-jacket) and swam in a relative calm area of the pool, but as I got a little nearer the waterfall, I realised that I wasn't moving forward. I was swimming on the spot. I was being sucked in by the waterfall. I like a bit of excitement, but I'm no fool. I yelped. And someone threw me a towline and reeled me in.

Of course that didn't stop me. I continued to frolic happily (and alone) in the water with my umbilical lifeline. They (the instructors) "made" me swim out and be carried away by the current. I climbed a little segment of rock (a couple of meters high, just a mini rock-climbing challenge), and they "made" me jump off.

Anyway, it was fun. Fun fun fun. And yet, while I yawned on the ride back, I wasn't that tired. So when we arrived back at the climbing centre around 19:00... I climbed. Except for a dinner break, I climbed and belayed until 22:30.

Then I got a shoulder massage. One of the instructors there had taken a class in sport massage therapy, so I plunked down in front of him and he proceeded to tell me how stiff all my shoulder and neck muscles were while he rubbed out a lot of knots. I must've yelped more than I had all day - it hurt - and yet those 15 minutes felt great. Or maybe it was the end of the 15 minutes that felt great, ha. I asked him for his work shift schedule so I could show up whenever he was there. XD (Yes, I was kidding.)

That did it, though. A day of riversourcing, extra hours of climbing and a shoulder massage. Guaranteed recipe for fun. I got home, took a hot shower, and I was out like a light. My shoulders are still sore today, but a good sore.

And best of all, I really want to get back into climbing. =)

Photos:
- 10/13: Pinjing Creek (小錦屏溪)
- 09/15: Taigang Creek (泰崗溪)

[Editor's note: my coworker informs me it's called river trekking. Wikipedia also offers "river tracing".]