Xmas Missions

Did a few missions around xmas time to some central north island rivers.

Managed to get on huka, upper ohinepango/waihohonu, and the rangitikei for some fun boating.

Heres some photos from river valley, Il'l up some other pics next week when I get them.

Callum and Fletch stalling it up at the put in

Me on Foaming

Andy, Foaming rapid

Wills's stomping his line

Flood Runs

A while ago the lower north island got smashed by 2 storms in a week which gave some sick boating.

We ran the Waikawa at super high flows twice and the Kahuterawa once which was a pretty cool run.

Heres some photos from the falls on Kutas:

The weird falls on the Kahuterawa. None of us managed

to run this with out subbing out on the seam

Me about to plug

Callum running the falls

About to disappear

All photos taken by Fletch.

Waiariki Academy Of Sport - Free fees for 2009!

Jared Meehan from the Waiariki Academy of Sport has managed to secure funding for next years kayak squad so now all coaching fees on both tiers of scholarships are FREE!!!
Thats up to and possibly over 10 grand of tuition for free.
For school leavers this means they can now get free tuition fees for their first year of study at Waiariki Institute of Technology and also get some sweet coaching in freestyle, extreme racing, and slalom.
Visit http://www.waos.ac.nz/ for more information on the academy of sport.
Im in the kayak squad this year and it is pretty awesome, lots of paddling and coaching from nz's best kayakers, all with the Kaituna as my playground hahaha, its sick!.

Mangakarengorengo River

After a nice run down Geoffs Joy on Sunday me and Jason were keen to hit a creek after all the rain we had.
We got off to a nice early start the next day with a crew consisting of us, Phil, Sam, Jamie, and Ryan L. Once we got into the Kaimais we saw the Tuakopae was too low and that some farmers dont like kayakers...
So we planned on hitting the Waipapa and with an hour and a half (at least) driving all over the Kaimais searching for it we got to the put in to find that it was also a bit too low.
After that we just decided to hit the mangas/wairoa combo, which we knew would be flowing.
So about 4 hours after we left home we put on the Ngamuwahine and floated into the Mangakarengorengo. We had a sweet run down with four of us running the Little Huka/Abyss rapid. Sweet lines except Jamies deck popping but was all good.
Sam ran center line Mclarens which was pretty sweet even if he did go over the handle bars a little bit. After that four of us cruised down the Wairoa which was bigger than normal but not too much harder.
See Sam Suttons website for a write up and pictures.
Heres the vid from my Little Huka run:

Kaituna Open Gates Video

Waikawa Stream

Last weekend I got offered a free ride back to Levin, so I left freezing cold Rotorua in search of a warm fire and some nice hot meals.

Stupid me didnt take my kit, thinking nothing would flow while I was down there. And although we got more hail than rain we still got a fair dumping and Jason, who was super keen to go run something, managed to sort me out some kit and a Bliss-stick Smoothie from Colin Mac.

After we drove all the way to palmy to find that Kutas wasnt flowing we headed back south and jumped on a extremely low Waikawa. I had run this creek once before in flood and thought it was pretty sweet, but wasnt quite sure about the flows today (they were only slightly higher than normal flows).

After you put on you get about 500m or so of grade III boogie water before you get to this rapid:

This drop has a fairly strait forward lead in into a tight squeeze down a slide and a small drop at the end which you fly off.

Jason on the slide.

Me hitting the hole at the bottom of the slide.

The car rapid: A 250m boulder garden containing some pretty tricky moves and a great big nasty log which requires sliding down a bony chute to avoid.

Scouting the car rapid.

After the car rapid you come around the corner to a sweet rapid called Boof City. This rapid has about four sweet small boof drops ending in Boof Falls, a small but awesome waterfall which gives sweet pop off the lip.

Me boofing in boof city.

Jason on the first drop in Boof City

Me - Boof Falls

Jason airing it off Boof Falls

Boof Falls from below - This picture does not do this drop any justice whatsoever!

Typical small Waikawa drop, the river is filled with continuous drops like this.

We portaged this rapid because there is a tree stump stuck in the left side which looked a bit sketchy, right side is full of rocks.
The drop is much steeper than it looks in the photo.

Sliding in after the portage.

Mini slide.

Pretty rooted on the walk/run for the shuttle.

Boulder garden from the shuttle road.

Looking good!

Now this is the real way to climb fences.
I should know, I grew up near farms...

Stoked to see the car.

We put on where the green cross is. As you can see its not a hell of a lot higher than low flow, so it can be run quite alot of the time. And only 10mins away from Levin!

Worlds scoring sheet & move definitions.

Score Sheet

Move Definitions

Back in Rotorua

After 2 weeks in Levin doing next to no boating I am back.
Unfortunately im a day too late and I missed the Tuakopae again.
Cant wait to get on the run that I have heard so much (good) about.
Speaking of which, Wairoa dates for 2008/2009 are as follows:

Wairoa Dates 2008/2009

Sep 2008, 14th & 28th
Oct 2008, 12th & 26th
Nov 2008, 9th & 23rd
Dec 2008, 7th, 14th, 21st & 28th
Jan 2009, 4th, 11th, 18th & 25th
Feb 2009, 1st, 8th, 15th & 22nd
March 2009, 1st, 8th, 15th 22nd & 29th
April 2009, 12th & 26th
May 2009 10th

Should be mean.

Kiwi juniors off to world cup!

Yeah sadly just not me. But Wills and Callum are off next month to get some euro girls and paddle a couple of rivers too. Im jealous as hell, but I know I cant afford to go overseas this year.
The 2 Levin (ex-levin) kayakers will be competing on these dates:

15,16,17 - World Cup Event 1 Prague, Czech Republic
22,23,24 - World Cup Event 2 Ausburg, Germany
29,30,31 - World Cup Event 3 Thun, Switzerland

Good luck to them, hopefully they beat some of those Jackson fags.

Local Run Pictures.

Just a few tuna/huka/wairoa pic's.
Theyre all pretty old but I dont have anything recent to put up here....

Wills running right on the mighty Tutea Falls

Glen Roberts cooling down after a full on

Kaituna Run

Me, pulling a not so huge, not so aerial loop
Callum about to go huge Master William showing how its done
Callum tucked to pull it around
Wills trying to keep dry - its working!Sleeping on the job
Wills vs Rosco - Wairoa Extreme Race 2008
Wills - Roller Coaster Rapid - Extreme Race 2008
Partying it upWills taking on the meat of the Huka weir
Me through the pencil sharpener - Huka FallsYou can just see Wills pinning the drop
My favourite kayaking photo, courtesy of Callum

Hopefully with the heavy rain warnings I might get a bit of high water action on the tuna tomorrow. Will get pic's if I can.

Huka Falls Video

Kinda old vid I made when I was messing around with a video editing program.