This past weekend, Teresa and I teamed up with some Cantebury Kayak club members and headed to the West Coast for some new rivers. With Maude locked and loaded with crossed over Arthur's Pass Friday after work and found a pretty decent camp spot next to Lake Brunner. Pretty incredible night sky over here. With coffee made we headed to Hokitika to meet up with the rest of the crew. Turns out it was a Wild Foods Festival in Hokitika and this normally small town was swarming with kiwis dressed up in animal onesies and ready to party.
We met the rest of the crew and the eight of us headed south to the Kakapotahi River for a warm up run. The Kakas turned out to be some awesome low water boulder gardens class 3-4 with lots of time for eddy hopping. After a great day, we packed up and headed to the Hari Hari lodge for the night.
Big thanks to Robin for the pictures and the trip planning.
The Kakapotahi was amazing and a great intro to West Coast paddling.
T-bird in her native environment getting her groove on.
Dropping in and digging the granite.
Pumped.
T cooked up some great Mac & Cheese and we hit the pillow with thoughts of the Perth on our mind. The next morning found us on the banks of the Whataroah River where we packed up our boats and waited for the heli. It finally came and we loaded up in teams of two for the fly in to the Perth.
Couldn't believe the fly in. Hard to figure out what to look at, the river or the mountains and glaciers...
It was over too quickly and we landed on a small clearing.
Our boats were strapped to cradles on the skids and were quickly unloaded.
Wow!
The water was bigger and bluer than we thought it would be.
Looking upstream from our put in.
A lot of boat scouting with some bank scouting mixed in. Here T lines up a sweet boof off the river right rock and nailed the line.
G on the same catching some air time.
Dropping into an amazing granite gorge that was absolutely stunning.
T calming her nerves and getting ready to drop in.
Pretty constant gradient with lots of eddies to catch your breath.
Love the rock in this river...just amazing granite boulders with the aqua blue as a backdrop.
T-bird with a nice line off the pillow.
T loves that Zet Raptor. Can't wait to try out a Zet myself when we get home.
Killing it!
Might be my favorite rapid of the day...nice boof to start and a bunch of moves to make after.
T styled it as usual.
Amongst it.
We had an amazing trip on a river right at our ability level. Not going to lie, there some nervous glances between T and myself at a couple of horizon lines, but there were only a couple of portages and everything else went. Great way to punch our West Coast ticket. Would love to get back in there, but at the same time, there are a lot more rivers to visit. Up next....Lila and Scott visit with more adventures to come. Stay Tuned!
