The Kokatahi River... A big day out.

Hanging out at the Hokitika campground, me, willzy, si and stephan were wondering where to fly the next day when jordie rocked up and decided we would paddle the Kokatahi... well ok then, if we have to.
We woke up the next day to get to the river at the ridiculously early time of 9am and started flying at around 10.30am seeing as dando had a slight hold up. No worries, just mean we had to bomb all that much faster. The Kokatahi is a huge day and is full of solid class V water, helped by the fact we had a very juicy medium flow. Too many rapids to name, all big and scary. Check the sick photos!

B-E-A-utiful Kokatahi Gorges

Cave on the left, freedom on the right!

Simon clearing one of the MASSIVE holes on the Kokatahi

Wills lining it up

Jordie on his home(ish) turf

Helis are a great way to scout. Fun too.

Flying up the Kokatahi Valley on a super nice easter sunday morning

Jordan Searle about to test his luck against a huge hole in space.

Where it goes...? Who knows? Almost wills.

Chur bro!

Simon entering Carnage gorge. Shes tight in there.

Stephan gettin his boof on

Portaging on the Kokatahi is super fun.

Shes steep, gnarly, full of holes, seives and undercuts. Also bloody good fun.

Wills making the cover shot

Arahura River

The Arahura river is a great first heli trip, and seeing as tillsy had never been up in a whirly bird it seemed the logical choice to spend a nice sunny Saturday. Sweet run, I took a massive beatdown in the top section and swam out of a nasty pocket after going for a couple of laps round without my boat. Hamish and Simon both stepped up and run cesspit which was awesome to see. See the photos for our fun run in the sun.

Wilzy exiting billiards

Me running cesspit, hoping to not become cess.

Simon davidson ladies and gentlemen.

Stephan in billiards, seive city.

Arahura rapids are all class

Me on curtain call

Stephan getting sick air in the top section.

Magical flying machine

Tillsy stomping his boofs

The elusive wad of cash that kayakers can never hold on to.

Back on the coast

So im back down on the coast now after flying into chch to meet Willz on the 7th. First day here it snowed like crazy and the alps were coated making the rivers high and the water bloody cold! Me and Willz went for a sick run down the Kakapotahi River yesterday and snapped a few pics.

Wills going into the tunnel rapid

Willz on Postmans falls

Airing it out on Airmail

Me boofing a hole on kakas

Me on airmail, trying, and succeding to land in water

Snow on Arthurs pass

Today we were gonna fly into the Arahura but it was a little on the high side of good so we just walked into the styx for a couple of laps which made for a fun day, Arahura tomorrow if the weather goes to plan.

Citroen Extreme Race

After a steller week on the coast we headed down to Queenstown to the Kawarau River for the Citroen race. Citroen is a class 4+ big water rapid which is super fun to race down with a line choice between the easier but slightly slower right line around the big boulder at the top or the fast and tricky left line which if you stuff up can see you getting pounded against the wall in a big recirculating eddy. First off you have the time trial which despite taking a roll I still had a pretty quick run down ending up seeded 15th. Then it goes to the Head to Head racing.
Looking at the draw I saw my number was up against #2, which turned out to be wills!
Winning the paper sissors rock at the top I had the good start and got a bit of a lead on wills, heading left while he headed right. Nailed my line through the left but hit a wave and took a roll, missed it and tried again getting it, luckily, because I was already out of breath. Looking behind I was still slightly in front of wills, then got smashed by another wave , ripping my paddle out of my hand and sending me back under. Rolling up I saw wills was sitting on my tail and we were coming up to the finishing gate. I quickly sprinted as hard as I could and just managed to take the gate before wills.
Next race was against Ben, a quick coast boater. I had the bad start position and as soon as I pulled off the start ramp Ben was already sprinting his way down to the start of the rapids. He had a perfect race and kept a decent lead on me the whole way knocking me out.
Finals was Brad vs Jamie and in a suprise race Jamie managed to take the win with brad in the lead most of the race. It was a quiet party with most of the competitors pretty tired out and we headed back to Okere falls at 10.30pm driving for 20 hours to be back here by 6.30pm the next day!

West Coast

We arrived in hoki on Sunday after bullerfest prizegiving and got to bed nice and early(ish) to recover from a weekend of partying hard.
Waking up Monday morning all the rivers were cranking so we went and jumped on the styx which is a fun run with a not so fun walk in.

Tuesday it cleared up to a super hot day and we made our way up the Arahura with a massive group of 14! After like 3 hours of shuttling people up to the putin Sam, Brad, Ryan and I jumped on the river and started bombing it to try and pass everyone. It was pretty cool running some super steep stuff blind like that, and more or less sprinting down none the less. Arahura was a awesome run with rapids like curtain call, billiards and cesspit the highlights of the day.

Wednesday was a cruisy day to rest up before a big Thursday so we went and ran the upper Kakapotahi which is one of the coolest gorges I have ever seen. Everyone had good lines through postmans falls, airmail and we got to the supposedly sieved out tunnel rapid to find out that it had cleaned out and all bombed through to end a super sick run, and then attempt the hard man challenge at the take out.

Thursday was the Upper Hokitika, a run I was nervous about since I heard it suggested, and rightly so. The Hokitika is full on, sick, and scary. All was good and we bombed down through the class Iv-V section to the beautiful Gates of Argonath, which is the most amazing thing I have ever seen. There are too many sick rapids on the upper hoki to name but Mikeys drop is crazy, and definitely the biggest rapid I have ever seen that has been run. Its insane!

Got a few photos from over the last days but not a whole load.

Maruia Falls

On Saturday while the bullerfest slalom was on Me, Simon, Jamie, Sanga, and Ryan L went for a mish to huck the famous Maruia falls a few times. Il let the pics do the talking.

And they say you shouldnt boof Mariua!
Me on Mariua falls.

Jamie Garrod in flight

Ryan Lucas stomping it.

Simon Davidson with a nice freewheel

Oh yeah, and Ryan swum it.

Bullerfest 09

This weekend has been the annual Bullerfest kayak festival in Murchison, where 100+ crazy drunken kayakers have invaded.
After a 14 hour drive me and Phil Mac made it to Murch and got some sleep for the boatercross on Friday. The boatercross on the Matakataki (or something like that) is a really sweet race where 4 people race down a short stretch of class 2 rapids. While it may be some easy water there is always a bit of carnage in the battles that go on during the racing.
In my first heat I had a battle with Bernard who kept me honest the whole way to the finish, but I managed to take it out which means I get a easier next heat.
2nd heat, the course gets shorter and a compulsery slalom gate gets put up. I had a really good start in my 2nd heat and by the time I was at the crux rapid I had a comfortable lead and cruised the rest of the race almost missing the banner!
Back up to the top of the river the competition started getting harder as half of the slower paddlers of the day had been knocked out. My heat was up and found myself paired against someone we all called Lamborghini, and damn he was quick!
I had a terrible start and Lamborghini pushed me up onto a rock and suddenly I was last.
I sprinted to catch up through the crux moves and managed to spin the guy in front of me. I had to get 2nd to advance to the quater finals so I sprinted my way down the final 50 meters of the course and slammed the other guy, passed him, and got to the banner just behind Lamborghini! Stoked!
Quater finals I was up agains Sam Sutton, Jamie Garrod, and someone I think was called Pete.
Another less than excellent start saw me in 3rd place behind Jamie and Sam, with Pete doing everything he could to spin me. I managed to get him off my tail then sprinted to catch Jamie, and was gaining until just before the finish I took a bad line over some slow water and it was all over.
Finals was Sam, Tyler, Brad, and Johann with Brad taking the win and Tyler in second.
Then we went and paddled the Glenroy which is a short but fun grade 3 run.

Later that night, a big one at the pub. Murch goes off!

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.