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It was at the third set of rapids that I capsized. My inflatable kayak wedged against a rock in the white water of a jungle-fringed gorge. The guide shouted at me urgently “high side!” reminding me that I should lean into the rock. Instead, I toppled into the swirling waters of the Wainikoriluva river to be carried downstream. The yellow rubber kayak stayed stuck behind the boulder.

I was in Viti Levu, the main island of Fiji. The Wainikoriluva river rises in the Namosi Highlands and twists and turns through impressive limestone gorges and rainforest-clad banks until it joins the Navua river and then the blue Pacific.

On a day-trip from the resort area of Pacific Harbour, we first journey for nearly two hours in an open-sided truck past fields dotted with banyan trees as wide as a small forest. We turn off onto a narrow unsealed road. There are fourteen of us bumping along on our day of adventure with our Fijian guide, Moses. My fellow-kayakers are Australians, including a family of five with two teenage girlfriends and a party of four twenty-somethings. Fiji, rather than troubled Bali, has become the preferred holiday playground for Australia.

We pass fields of taro and men ploughing with bulls. Smiling children wave from the verges and an old man carries firewood on horseback. The landscape becomes more mountainous and is shrouded in mist. Finally, after an hour or so, 1700 feet up, we stop for a welcome break. Standing by the quiet roadside, Moses hands around homemade cake and juice. He tells us about local delicacies in parts of Fiji: horse, dog and - where he is from - mongoose and flying fox. “Delicious” he says. He tells of hunting for wild pigs as a youth and shows us a scar on his forearm from a particularly vicious boar. It is only in the Melanesian countries of the Pacific that people live so deep in the interior, living from the land.

Soon the sun begins to shine, burning off the mist and adding a sheen to the dark green foliage of the jungle. We see our first village since leaving the main road. “People moved here from higher up when missionaries persuaded them to stop cannibalism,” explains Moses, above the rattle of the truck. “They no longer needed to be even higher on the mountainside, ready to spear attackers.”

Finally, we reach the village of Nakavika, home, says Moses, with precise guesstimation, to “about three hundred and twenty, not including children.”

There are three or four rows of simple, corrugated iron houses with louver windows. A generator provides electricity and there is one solar-powered telephone. There are no roads or cars - just tidy grassy areas where people dry the narcotic kava root in the sun. Children greet us with a cheery “bula” from doorways. We follow Moses to the chief’s house. He is paralysed after a rugby accident, and sits on the floor. We shake hands and introduce ourselves and sit in a circle on the palm-mat-covered floor. We are here to take part in one of Fiji’s most ancient and traditional ceremonies – drinking kava with the chief. This is the protocol when entering a village for the first time. We also need to ask Chief Leo’s permission to kayak down his tribe’s river. He readily agrees.

The American-owned company, Rivers Fiji, has been leading groups of adventurous tourists down this river three times a week for the past seven years. Not only does tourism provide employment for men from the village as guides, but a levy of a few dollars per visitor is used to pay for school equipment and books. “Tourism is good for us,” says Leo quietly. “We have one of the best schools in the area now,” he tells us, after we have all downed a few coconut-shells of the muddy brew. The old man is a former policeman who now administers local justice, including dispensing a good beating from his sons for anyone caught drinking alcohol.

Next we are picking our way down a steep, slippery slope. By the riverside, Moses gives us a safety briefing and suggests we practice paddling on the nearby calm stretch. But before long, Katherine and Eloise, two rather dippy teenagers from the family group, are, unwittingly, heading towards the first set of rapids. “Back paddle, back paddle!” shout the guides urgently from shore. Their friends join in, screaming advice, watching helplessly as they disappear – now going backwards – over the rapids. The girls’ hysterical laughter carries above the roar of the water. At least they are finding it funny.

We are relieved to discover they have survived, without even capsizing. All safe, we begin our journey of ten kilometres, over nearly twenty sets of rapids. The inflatable kayaks bob through the foaming water like rubber ducks. They fill completely at times and we all get drenched. If we happen to be in hearing distance, Moses and the other guides instruct us how to tackle each white water section and to watch out for ‘strainers’ – bamboo and wood floating in the river. But it is not long before I have my baptism.

But it is not all daredevil antics. We paddle through a serene gorge of sponge-cake-like limestone, where birds’ nest ferns hang from the cliff-tops from which water drips, pours and sparkles in the sun. Reflections from the dappled river pattern the roof of a cave. Andre, Chief Leo’s son and one of the guides, tries to prise a freshwater crab from a crevice but the crab wins.

We stop at a small riverside beach for a picnic that the guides have transported in cool boxes strapped to their kayaks. While we eat sandwiches, the four Fijian men - their bodies sinewy and solid with muscle - tuck into cooked taro and tins of corned beef.

Further downriver, we turn a bend and glimpse a waterfall gushing over a section of cliff set in the forest. We beach our kayaks and follow a pretty path past a house of woven bamboo and thatch. “The owner of the waterfall lives here when he comes to tend his garden,” explains Moses. We walk through plots of taro, cassava and pineapples. The grassy path to the waterfall is kept clean and short. (The landowner is paid a fee for the Rivers Fiji visits.) The afternoon sun shines through the heart-shaped taro leaves nodding in a breeze. The 150ft waterfall tumbles and gushes over the cliff face. It is surreally beautiful. Near the fall, our voices are lost in its thunder, blown away by the cool wind it makes. It’s not the biggest of waterfalls but there is something about its beauty. We scramble into the pool at the base. The spray and wind is almost suffocating.

Drenched once more, we continue downriver until we reach a confluence. Here, two long motorised wooden boats are waiting. This is the end of our paddling. When we are all ashore, the mother of the family group suddenly panics. “Where are the girls?” she screams. Katharine and Eloise have not arrived. There is a moment of heart-stopping worry.

The bow of a kayak appears around the bend and familiar hysterical laughter dances across the water. The girls are still getting to grips with how to steer. “Back paddle, back paddle!” we shout from the riverbank as they drift merrily past.

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