Rotorua rafters take top spot in China

WINNERS: Rotorua's Dai Edwards, left, and Nick Chater were part of a masters team who won two golds at the Wubu International Rafting Championships in China. PHOTO/STEPHEN PARKER

For Rotorua's Nick Chater and Dai Edwards, rafting has been more than just a sport - it's been an amazing way to see the world.

The pair were part of a masters team who paddled their way to two gold medals at the Wubu International Rafting Championships in China.

The four-man team competed in the open division last month and won both the 1.2km sprint and the 8.5km downriver races, taking the overall title.

Chater, who has represented New Zealand in rafting since 2006, said the team were invited to race in China because he and Edwards were members of the two-time masters champion team at the Rafting World Championships.

"There were about eight international teams from places like Germany, Slovakia, Australia and Croatia, and we were racing against six Chinese teams.

"We were the only old boys in it and we won quite convincingly too, so we were pretty rapt. It's quite funny, often the masters teams are really strong."

He said the most important part of any race was the start.

"You sort of head out of the blocks at a really fast rate. The nature of a raft is it doesn't glide, they are awful boats.

"You have to get out really fast and then you're just trying to stay in the current and get in the fastest moving water.

"It depends on the river. Sometimes it's big white water, sometimes it's really rocky and technical."

Racing on the Yellow River in China's remote Yulin City was an "epic" experience.

"Not the river necessarily, it was pretty flat with just a couple of rapids, but it was over 40C when we were racing.

"The biggest thing was this was a province where most people literally hadn't seen a foreigner before.

"You'd walk down the street and young children would either cry or laugh, old people's mouths dropped. The province across the river heard we were coming and they reckon there were about 300,000 people making their way to the opening ceremony and start line.

"It took us five hours to drive 30km and at the closing ceremony they had 50,000 people in the stadium. We joked about how it wasn't like they were trying to show us China, they were trying to show us to the Chinese people."

Chater said competing in rafting had given him a lot of unique travel opportunities.

"My background is outdoor education and I believe in the power of engaging our youth with the outdoors.

"But, for me personally, I've been to places like Kashmir, Bosnia, Ecuador, places I never ever would've gone to. And because it's rivers you're often in really remote places where you meet really rural people.

"The nature of rafting is they are always really interesting people, it's been very good to us."

Chater and Edwards will now focus on training, along with their teammates, to defend their masters title at the World Rafting Championships in Japan in October.

"We try and find out what the river is like over where we are going to race. In Japan it's relatively big water so we've been lucky this year with all the rain we've had, we've been able to go to rivers that are really high at the moment."

It will be a family affair for the Chaters at the world championships as Nick's wife and two daughters are competing as well.