The Avon River Crawl

On one given Saturday I took part in another classic and memorable UCCC event. The Avon river flows through the heart of Christchurch past the UC Campis and on into downtown. 20+ dressed up kayakers accompanied by a keg enjoyed a debauchously beautiful afternoon on the Avon.

The real reason the two persons whitewater kayak was invented!

off we go

The Keg dressed up and looking good

The Avon has some amazing whitewater too

Another one bites the dust

A small traffic jam as too many kayakers go for the keg at once

A match made in heaven

Marlborough Sounds

For one of my classes we lead a group of students into Marlborough Sounds for a two night, three day adventure. Everyone made it, the sun came out, and life was good.

We got up real early on the day it started to get things all sorted before our clients arrived.

How much gear can you stuff into a sea kayak... a fair amount as we found out.

Off we go!

Mossy was from Brazil and had very little English. He and I were partners for the sea kayaking leg of the trip. Talking together was a struggle and we had little depth in our conversations. But before the weekend was over he promised if I came to his home country he should show me all the whitewater and beautiful women I wanted...

Lunch stop

Campfire time!

The always funny and classic "weather rock"

My fellow leaders and new friends. We ended the trip by tramping for a day back to the closest trail head. After which we headed for home with a compulsory stop for fish and chips along the way!

Anatoki Video

Here is the video from the trip down the Anatoki. Short and sweet, enjoy.


Video by Ben and I
Music by J5

ANATOKI

I'm pretty sure Anatoki means "steeper then @!#%" in Maori. Ben, Johno, and I flew up the Anatoki and had our self quite the mission. The run is 15 km's long and chimes in at 80 m/km (500+ fpm) for a large portion of that. The "right" flow is in the 9-12 cumes (200-600 cfs) range. The biggest issue for us was daylight, the fastest a group had done the run was around 11 hours. knowing we were not going to be able to get down in one day, we had the chopper drop off our over night gear at the bottom of the steep stuff. All things added together we still had to move fast and efficiently down the run to make camp before dark. All in all it was quite the adventure. We endured some very hard work ( i.e. portaging a lot of 500 fpm mank) for some very classy drops (i.e. clean 20 footers) and made it out in all in one piece.

If it looks huge from the helicopter you know your in for a big day out.

Our ride of choice for this trip. Of note is that fact that there are no doors on the chopper...sweet

Ben getting off to a good start. Taking pictures was third to staying alive and trying to make camp before dark, so the quantity and quality are somewhat low.

Looking back up at some of the early and most manageable steep stuff. Capturing the steepness of the run on film was hard.

Johno hits the boof and some sunshine.

Johno on one of the best drops on the run.

At one point we got to the hard to scout, harder to portage, 20 footer that the guide book spoke of. Ben nutted up and dropped in first.

Our camp on the river was awesome, complete with a fire, dry clothes, warm food, and knowing that we had completed the hardest portion of the run. After 9+ hours on the river we all slept quite well.

Jono gets into it early on day two.

Ben pulls out a good morning boof

All smiles at the take out.

Drying gear and eating ice cream, life was good and the Anatoki was complete.

"You don't go kayaking in New Zealand, you go on an adventure and bring a kayak along." The Anatoki fits the mold of NZ adventure boating completely. The run was most definitely the hardest mission I have been on in New Zealand.... so far