Mangawhio River

Yesterday we got the remains of tropical cyclone innis passing over the bulk of NZ and it rained!!!

Tyler came round in the afternoon looking like he was on crack because he was so excited, I opened the door and he says "Hey were gonna go paddle the Mangawhio, its the highest B's ever seen it wanna come?".

So we met up with Barnabus, Ryan L, Ryan M (way too many Ryans on one trip) and Sam, and headed over to Brendans place stealing Dave from work on the way.

Once at B's place we met him and soph and sorted out a shuttle (jetski) and we headed over to the only piece of river you can really scout, its a road bridge at least 100 meters high where you can almost see the biggest rapids of the day. From up there it looked fairly flat, but brown and super quick, and we could all see it was cranking hard. After all making a mental note to avoid the trees on the right then get back to the right and eddy out before going over the big ones we headed on up to the putin.

The Mangawhio river sure knows how to start a run off, with a solid 8 meter drop 50 meters from the putin. Was a super clean drop which got the adrenalin pumping and eased off the nerves a bit, though it looked huge and looking at it made me think "Were going over a drop twice that size!!!"

From this drop the river turns into a big rollercoaster which reminded me of the Kahuterewa on speed. There were hardly any eddys and a steep gradient so it was some fun boating down to the next drop, which is usually a portage.

We jumed out of our boats and took as much of a look at the portage as we could and it looked like we had enough water so Sam fired it up closely followed by Ryan Mac, both stomping it, we all followed suit. Its a pretty sweet 6m drop but pretty bony in the lead in. Super clean boof.

From here the river turns back into the theme park ride with a few 2-3m drops and some decent gradient for like 20 minutes non stop. All of a sudden the river started dropping away more steeply and there were a whole load of 3m ledge drops. Looking up I saw the bridge way above us so knew that the trees on the right were coming up, but I was really suprised at the size of the drops, it had looked completely flat from the bridge. Everyone got through the section sweet even though some didnt even realise that it was the bridge section.

Time for the big ones, we all got our boats up onto the bank and walked up to scout the 3 meter weir into the 10 meter drop into the massive 15 meter waterfall. Walking around all I could think was "Fuck these drops look huge!". While we were sitting at the 10 meter drop Sam fired it up styling it and same with Ryan Mac, who got a bit of a trashing in the big one so the stories go, and got ripped from his boat. We couldnt see their lines off the big one but knew that they could help each other out, and that Soph was down there somewhere.

Barnabus went next, going a bit far left on the 10er and we heard his paddle scrape the wall, but reportedly styling the big one. Ryan Lucas was up and ran down the right of the 3m and from the eddy his line over the middle drop looked steller.

Then it was me, I took a minute to run through the lines in my head, then pushed out into the current and heading over the right side of the weir. I took a few seconds in the small pool between the next drop and looked at my line. After one last look at the boys on the side I drove hard over the boil aiming to get as right as possible, but to the left of the rock. Boofed off the 1m entry drop, landed, then boofed my life away off the 10 meter drop which felt truely massive. Had a sweet line and came out upright and stoked because now I had the easy part. Rolled off the lip of the 15, tucked and held on. I went super deep and felt the pressure hit me but only lasted a couple of seconds, and I rolled up a little winded and sore, but stoked!

Behind me, Dave swam on the weir and lost his boat and paddle but managed to get to the side and walked out with Brendan who ran the drops then went back up for Dave.

The Mangawhio is such a sick run and is the best river I have ever paddled. Definitely a North Island classic.

Apart from running out of petrol our trip home was uneventful and managed to be in bed by the nice early time of 1am.

We didnt get any photos or footage but heres a vid of a previous run of Brendans.

Tutea Falls

Thought id chuck this photo up of me running left line off Tutea falls on the Kaituna

Summer update!

Okere falls in summer, what a sweet place.

Iv been working as a raft/sledge guide on the Kaituna, which means all day on the water and normally a fair bit of the night on the beers.

Picked up my new playboat the other day also, thanks to Andy at bliss-stick, its a damn sweet rad.

Off on a west coast mission in a month so should have some sweet photos from that.

Also look out for the next massive clothing label on the market, Freebase, website coming soon.

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