Well, again it has been some time since we found ourselves cosily ensconced in the virtual pseudo-pub that is the blog, and again my apologies if you have been checking back on a regular basis waiting eagerly for updates. Well, it has been a slightly hectic month with a lot happening, but I think I will tell you about the kayaking side of things first. Essentially, just over a year ago, a bloke I met a couple of times in the UK flew out to NZ and met up with us in Murchison, which incidentally is rapidly becoming one of my favourite towns. Well, ‘town’ might be stretching it a bit I guess. Warren and I did some gentle paddling around the area with a bloke we met on a river called Martin, who was Czech. Or possible Slovak, I can’t quite remember, and feel bad for not being able to remember. Sorry Martin.
Last year, the Matakitai Earthquake Section with Mr G from school. Linda took this photo, then went back to drinking beer.
*DISCLAIMER BIT* the river descriptions that follow are based on my memory of my opinion of the section, from when I did the section and may be wildly innaccurate and/or highly disputable. What I am trying to say folks, is what I think about the run may differ from what you think, and the levels change. So, I have described how the section appeared to me, and linked to the guidebook we used.
Anyway, scroll forward a year and I got a text from Warren. He was coming down to Hoki to do some paddling. He met up with some locals and got taken off by them to do some of the scary Grade X ‘death-on-a-stick’ paddling that the West Coast is famous for. After a couple of runs with local lunatics, Mr B and I set off for Murchison to do some easier for him, but still scary for me paddling at the shallow end of the grading system. On the way up we stopped off at the Grey River and ran Gentle Annie Gorge. This had been described to me as a ‘gentle, cruise-y run that wasn’t worth the shuttle’. It was worth the shuttle and with a fairly full river, wasn’t that gentle. It was a pretty continuous Gr III ish gorge. We made it more interesting for ourselves by not putting on the river until about 6pm in the rain and gunky weather. According to the guidebook, it was a 3-5 hour run, and it gets dark at about nine-ish. I think it took us about two and a bit hours to do a 15km section. There were two bits of rapids that were a little harder than the rest, and it was running high but not a bad trip. There are no photos available apart from this one..
This is Warren worrying sheep. The shuttle for this run takes a while, as there is a lot of gravel road driving. There are also sheep. Who in this picture are ‘baa-ing’ our way to a ‘five baa’ gate, so Warren had to go and shoo them away. ‘Ewe’ will notice he isn’t wearing wellies or velcro gloves which would be ‘shear’ crassness for ‘flocks’ sake! I don’t think I can ‘ram’ in any more ovine based puns in, so I promise I will stop.
We went and camped near Murchison and got up the next day and ran the Maruia river, which was a sort of Grade II-III, with the possibility of IV in large flows. It was flowing high, but not massively so. It was really bloody nice as far as I was concerned. Enough to keep you interested without being terrified, pretty to look at and about 15km long again. Oh, and because it is a little way out-of-town, it tends not to be run very often, so we pretty much had it to ourselves, apart from an American couple who were fly-fishing. It was a nice trip, and if you are in the area and going boating, I recommend it. There are no photos of this one. Sorry!
As it was still relatively early, we then went and ran the Mangles river, which owing to the local geography was on a low-level and was a slightly dull scrape down a rocky ditch. I can see that in higher water, it would be more of an adventure, but still. Oh, no pictures of this one either.
We then went back into town and set up camp at the Riverview campsite. If anyone reading this is thinking of coming out to do some paddling, this campsite should be on your list of places to stay. We set up the tents and were discussing dinner, when a bloke wandered up to us and offered us a beer and asked if we minded if he came paddling with us in the morning. We turned down the beer, but accepted the paddling. Phil had arrived in NZ that morning, hired a boat and a car just big enough to fit the boat in and driven to Murchison to warm up a bit before heading off to do some interesting rivers on the West Coast. Fair enough, I thought, was Phil interested in dinner? Brilliant, so off we went to a local restaurant for a very good steak and chips. Later that evening, back at the campsite, a couple wandered up to us and asked if we were going paddling the next day. I think the three big creek boats and kit hanging out to dry may have given us away at this point. We said we were and our river running crew gained another paddler, Steve, and due to a collar-bone dislocation caused by falling off a mountain bike (And we all know about that don’t we?) a shuttle and photograph bunny George (ina). On top of this, we were meeting another UK paddler on holiday when he drove down from Picton after catching the overnight ferry. So, we got up and went paddling. The Gowan was described to us being a ‘relatively easy Grade II-II, with a few trees on it’ . Being as how it is lake fed, and the lake is snow-melt fed I think, it was cold, clear and blue, and seemed to be at a high-ish level. (It was the way the water was lapping at the grass at the put in that made me think that). Well, we put on and drifted the first hundred yards or so, then it was a continuous boulder garden-y, tree infested blast down to the get out. 11km took us about an hour and little bit. We would have eddied out, but there weren’t any. It was fairly manic and at that level, I reckon more of a three than a two, purely because of the lack of eddies and the trees. Lots of different channels as well, so picking a route down was done on the fly. There was one point when we floated over a tree with about 6″ depth over it, then shortly after had to duck under another branch across the river, so all in all I reckon we hit it at a good level. No photos of this one either! Then we went and paddled the Upper Buller out of the lake. Which was a little more sedate and there were a few more eddies. It was nice. So, if you don’t beleive me here is a photo. Of me. Paddling. Yeah, really. Cool eh? That is a smile actually not a grimace. Thanks to Phil for taking the photo and then e-mailing it to me a few days later.
(Note big, cheesy 3* grin…)
Paul and Warren had to go off and do some sea-kayaking round Abel Tasman, so Phil, George, Steve and I went back to the campsite, where we had a cup of tea and a biscuit, before meeting a very cheerful Italian called Diego and his wife, whose name I didn’t catch, and then we went and paddled the Matakitaki Earthquake section. On a higher level than I previously done it. This meant some of it had washed out, but those bits that hadn’t were a bit pushier and higher volume. Steve took a swim on the upper bit, and put in one of the best displays of defensive swimming I have ever seen, before we recovered his boat and set off again. I took a roll on the lower section as I inadvertently found the bloody great big hole at the bottom. I ‘skillfully’ exited the hole by the tried and trusted method of back looping out of it. Diego, who was behind me, said he had been following my line, but when he saw the loop, he went left and avoided the hole. His English is better than my Italian, but his internationally recognised paddler sign language and whistling was very eloquent. And then I drove home reflecting on a busy couple of days. It is worth noting, that considering most of us hadn’t really paddled together much, the dynamic on the rivers was really good. I would happily paddle with all of those people again without any qualms. They might need persuading to paddle the easy stuff with me though….. Still at least it was sunny.
A few things worth noting: The boat I was paddling was a new Bliss-Stick Mystic Creeker (Blue for preference please..) lent to me by the Outdoor Ed teacher at school, so a massive thanks to Bruce for that. The boat was absolutelty awesome. Bloody amazing, made me look almost like a decent paddler. When I next buy a boat, I reckon I will get one of those. Especially as the factory is in NZ and if I work there for five days, I get to buy a boat from them for $500 dollars in lieu of pay. Awesome boat. (I wish I was being paid by them to say that.. but alas I’m not..) Secondly, the rapids and grading in NZ are different to the UK in my opinion. It seems that especially on the West Coast and Buller as well, a ‘rapid’ is a section of river, and it is usually some kind of boulder jumble, with no actual single feature. In the UK, a rapid is often just a single drop or feature on the river. If my memory works properly, think of the Treweryn. The top section has several named rapids, then you get to the boulder garden bit called the Graveyard(?). The NZ rivers I have seen and paddled are more Graveyard in style than the pool-drop style of the upper Treweryn. Expect more jumble and less named features, especially on the West Coast. I think. If you are coming out to paddle for the first time here, try and arrange to spend a couple of days in Murchison first to get used to the guide-book’s idiosyncratic style and do not expect a blow-by-blow account of the river. You will get a grade and how to get there and possibly an anecdote. The rivers here can be very isolated and may not go anywhere near a road. A lot of the famous West Coast runs are helicopter fly-ins. Gentle Annie Gorge on the Grey is about twenty km down a gravel track to both the put in and the get out. These were the only two access points along the whole section, the rest was in an inacceasble gorge. Similar with the Maruia. Once on the river, the get out is just about the only way off the river. Bear this in mind when planning paddling. The Buller is divided up into manageable sections, but, you will find again, that once you are on the river, you will stay on the river to the next get out. So, if you go to the Riverview Campsite just off Highway 6, and hang about (Although offering beers works well as well..) you will probably meet paddlers. Especially between Christmas and New Year. The rivers round Murchison are pretty much year round, and a lot of paddlers seem to use it as a warm up before heading further west. Your other option is to go and hang out at the NZ Kayak School in town and buy shiny, shiny bits of kit and check out local levels and rivers and stuff. The staff are all really nice and friendly and will advise you on what’s what in the area. You can also hire kit from here and there is a shop in Chch that will hire kit as well. I think Phil paid about $200 for two weeks boat hire. Which isn’t bad compared to the hassle of flying with boats. Um, so that is a note about kit, grading and meeting paddlers. So, you should be all set then. Give us a shout when you are headed this way, and I will try and get up to Murchison to meet up and paddle.
In other, less important news, we moved house. We now live in Timaru. It was an interesting couple of days, and involved a lot of driving. More on that one later.
Book-wise, I had a week on the sofa, and three visits to the library, the highlight of which was the new Terry Pratchett, ‘Unseen Academicals’, and several other TP re-reads. Also worth mentioning, ‘Sharpe’ re-reads. Pleasant way to pass a couple of hours. Oo, exciting writer, new to me anyway, is a bloke called Richard Morgan with a book called ‘Altered Carbon’. Brilliant, twisty turny plotting, exciting action. Sci-fi noire. Worth checking out. but only if you are over say, 18 or so. Also, a writer called Rupert Thomson- kind of PAD type fiction stuff but unusual approach. Interesting and again worth getting out of your local library. What else have I read? Like you are going to know.. Um, oh yes. There seems to be something of a vogue for Scandinavian crime fiction at the moment. I just read a sort of triliogy by a bloke called Jo Nesbo. ‘Redbreast’, ‘Nemisis’ and some thing else as well. Good, but not rave-about brilliant. Again, get them out of the library. Finally, the last of the ‘Nightwatch’ sequence. Called ‘The Last Watch’, again well worth collecting the four extant in the series. By a Russian bloke, just google ‘Nightwatch’. The film is also available and is okay, but if you can get the original cinema release one with the animated subtitles, I reckon that is worth the price alone.
Musically, before paddling I seem to be listening to ska a fair bit, especially The Specials. Don’t know why. I suspect it might be Tea-boy Tom’s influence. It just seems right somehow. The rest of the time we have been concentrating on our calming and relaxing soundtrack. So, one month before Munchkin is due, and there is still a bit of flat-packing to allen key together, some nappies may be arriving in the post and stuff. Oh, here is a photo of the house. 
Update. On Sunday, about lunchtime, I had a text from Warren. It went along the lines of: ‘Too much rain here, coming to near you to find some paddling. Fancy a run tomorrow?’
To which I responded, ‘Love to. No boat.’
Some time later; ‘No problem, got boat and paddles’
‘Okay then. Who have you got with you?’ (Reason for asking here is that Warren has been knocking around with Auckland University Canoe Club this summer and I think there are about fourteen of them.. Now, we’ve got room for them to pitch tents and stuff, but we only have six mugs, so making them all a cup of tea was going to be a problem. Then I thought, well, they have been camping so perhaps they will bring their own mugs?)
‘Just me and Paul, we will be in Timaru shortly..’ (No problems, we can even let both of them sleep inside!)
‘Fair enough, need a place to crash?’
And using Warren’s magic phone and sat-nav device, a car and a van pitched up on the driveway a short while later. Warren and Paul had spent some time driving round the South Island paddling a variety of rivers and having adventures. It has been a wet summer here and a lot of rivers are flowing a little high. Some of the AUCC paddlers had talked about doing some rivers over this side of the hill, so Warren and Paul decided to split from the group and head over whilst the group got themselves organised. (Hmmm group of paddlers of different abilities, university club, summer road trip. Three faff multipliers straight off..) Warren blagged a boat – a blue Mystic funnily enough and a pair of paddles- and they left the faff behind and came on over. Monday morning we got up and went off and ran the Opihi river, which is about forty minutes or so from here. We put on and the river was a bit low and surrounded by willow trees. The sun came out. Pleasant. Then we got into the gorge. Eep. A big, scarey, ominous, no-escaping-from gorge. It was fast and shallow, but not as gnarly as the gorge made it look. Personally I give it a solid Grade III, but it was the most pool drop river I have paddled in NZ. I think it was about 10km and took 2hrs. We scouted two of the bigger drops and ran the rest. Lots of pools, loads of eddies, nice and scenic. A really, really lovely section. Reminiscent in many ways of the Dart Loop. In a big, scarey gorge. Oh, in the interests of full disclosure I should add I swam twice.
Once as I went down a drop and bumped a rock hard, went over and it was too shallow to roll and I was banging about on rocks a lot, so I baled. The other wasn’t strictly my fault, and also involved bumping a rock (Having been bumped by some-one else into it…) and capsizing and once again knocking my head repeatedly I baled again. Non scarey swims in both instances. However, I really liked the section, and it is local. Sweet and unepxpected in many ways. Big thanks to Warren and Paul for making it possible. Huge thanks to the owner of the boat. Sorry about the scratches. There will be some pictures of this one at some point, as Paul had a camera out a fair bit.
Nice. Pool-drop fluffyness. Thanks guys.
