Winter

Bit of a dry spell for the old blog posts lately. Reasons for this are along the lines of no decent camera, lots of other people doing updates on the same thing (the Wainui) and plain laziness.

*On a side note - There aren't any pictures in this post so if you're one of those people (who just look at the pictures).... you might be disappointed.

In non metaphorical terms, it has most definitely not been a dry spell. Apparently it has something to do with the El Nino year. Or is it La Ninia? I get confused. Anyway whatever it is, it's been keeping regular, big, grunty, northerly weather systems cranking down the bay of plenty coast which translate into two things. Firstly lots of rain in our favourite range - you guessed it, the Kaimais. At a rough guess I think I've been creeking every few weeks since Christmas which is basically unheard of. Secondly, the days after we go creeking are filled with more water sports due to the mean NE swells which have given the east coast of the country the best summer of surfing in a long time. I got a new board a while back and have been frothing on surfing lately which is a nice change from the Kaituna in a dry top.
Last month me, B and Ben went to the Mangawhio and got on at a high flow which was sick but made the entrance to the gorge quite exciting. Tragically there is a massive log right across the first drop in the gorge which necessitates a mongrel portage and ish nerve wracking seal launch back in for the 40 - where we all got pretty well violated in the boil. Happy days.

The last two weekends have been sick with good rain timing in perfectly for a run down the upper Ngamuwahine last weekend which holds its water a bit longer than others - it's got a cool steep section on it with a committing and pretty rowdy gorge and some fun rapids to finish with. Then yesterday we made the call to turn up to the Tuakopai to try and catch the water. We were bang on and got on right at the peak. Berno and myself bombed it and both flat landed the shit out of Douglas falls which rattled the teeth/spine - this was nowhere near as bad as Stefan Gilmour though who did the same on spa and got a cracked and compressed L2 vertebra for his troubles. Bit of a wake up call for a run which has become the 'easiest' in the Kaimais - get forward and stomp ya'll.
The Wainui also claimed another victim a while back with Douglas hurting his back on the 25 and only finding out the other day that he's got a crack in one of his vertebra as well which is average.

Ok so I lied, here's couple of photos -


Mr Brown doing his thing on the double drop on an earlier trip on the Ngamu.(shamelessy plagarised from louise Jull's blog)

And yet another photo of the biggy on the Wainui. Chur to Mike Dawson for snapping this one.

Hopefully the rains continue and we keep getting on all these sick creeks in our backyard and playing on the waves in our other backyard. Soon there will be enough snow to go and ride the white stuff in the neighboring backyard.
Stand by.

We've been having a sick time here in the falls with Christmas and New years parties dominating the scene and various extra curricular activities filling in the gaps. Most of these gaps for the last two weeks have been wakeboarding and skiing at Orakei Korako (try pronouncing that one). I dragged Josh away from his supposed day of 'work' to come and play at one of my favourite spots anywhere in the world - I'm glad they dammed this part of the river... Anyway we found a choice new place for adventuring and Mr Neilson had the gopro so we filmed some stuff and he made a choice little edit.

"What did you do yesterday"

Waikato river day!!! from Southern Underground Productions on Vimeo.

Christmas creeking

Last week our household decided to roll with Jamie on one of his trips around lake Waikaremoana in the Urewera national park. It's a four day walk around a sick lake - especially when you have a boat to carry your packs/beer/wine and other assorted vital supplies from hut to hut. We had a mean time and with weather which wasn't amazing but fine for walking we happily started the drive back to Rotorua where we had missed a rather savage bender (by all accounts) for the xmas at Kaituna party.
Anyway, it just so happened that it had been raining the whole time we were away and things were starting to come alive in the Kaimais...
After being home for five minutes. I was sitting on the couch checking the guages (looking promising) and trying to get constructive conversation out of Josh (not so promising), when I saw a certain dark green Subaru with a full rack of boats fly up the road. Emergency measures were taken as a quick phone call established a Tuakopai special was in progress. paddling gear was fired in the back of the car and without further ado, team stinky took off to meet the other crews heading back towards the wairoa.
The put in found it on the low side but still good for a 12 person twilight bomb down one of the funnest (is that even a word?) creeks you can find anywhere.
With more rain being forecast, plans were made to keep the ball rolling for the next day and get back amongst it. The Waipapa was next on the list and with a slightly smaller crew we headed back over at the crack of morning tea for a run down a creek with some of the sickest boofs in the Kaimais.

B firing 'jism falls' - a 20 footer with a super super tight landing which launches you straight into a sick slide.

Me just about to maim the slut boat on the entrance to mojo gorge - there was about a 50-50 split of dented boats whether you ran the rapid or the seal launch right next to it...

J dog running some in between mank

Berno experiencing his first taste of the Kaimais on the second best boof of the day - the exit of mojo, a glorious 20ish footer with a sick entrance-to boof-to kickdown. Happy Christmas.

All in all a mean five days and a good bit of luck getting some creeking in a week before Christmas! As I'm writing this the lifestylists of Okere Falls (who haven't used up their get out of work free cards) have gone South to chase the rain; possibly near Taihape, possibly the Tauranga Taupo... watch this space.

Waihi First Descent

At the end of October Myself and Tyler rallied down to the Hawkes Bay to try and tick the Waihi stream which Matt Danes found a couple of years ago. without any real idea of the scale of this thing we arrived to find it pumping - a section of big wide bedrock about 900m long which lost 100m in gradient... Anyway here's a video shot and edited by the esteemed Mr Neilson who was on camera due to a broken wing. Epic times.

Southern Underground Productions: Waihi First Descent: "Waihi Stream First Descent 2010 from Southern Underground Productions on Vimeo."

Anyone want to argue about waterfalls now??

Big. Water.

Over the last few seasons the crew from up here have slowly been ticking off the creeks which run off the eastern side of the Kaimai ranges in Tauranga. The established classics like the Tuakopai and the Mangakarengorengo have turned into after work/school bomb runs and people have been looking further north for adventures into seldom or unrun drainages.
These runs are characterised by big slides, lots of vert and then usually a big beast of a drop down the bottom where a hard band of rock must run the length of the Kaimais, creating for the most part, a big portage.
After a wet winter, the boys had ticked off lots of runs, some new, some old and some revisited. The Rataroa, Te Puna and Aongatete (try saying those fast) all got checked out along with the Waipapa which is turning into the 'go to' when it's raining hard. I got back to the falls just in time for some horrid weather which fully soaked the ground to the point where the water was just running straight into the creeks - ideal.

A day off on Sunday and a Northerly front cemented the plan on Saturday night - get to one of the reputedly 'best creeks in the Kaimais'. With only one descent a few years back, we were keen to check it out after hearing the stories and seeing the odd photo of super cool drops and slides, not to mention 'the big one' a suppposedly clean, unrun 90 footer....

B and Ryan (along with Wills who got lucky having another week of uni because of some earthquake) were the instigators of said plan and we woke up early on Sunday to some doubt about the conditions (not quite as much rain as hoped) but decided to go anyway.
After all the usual stops (bakery, navigation, scouting, farmer, other farmer, toilet etc) we finally made it to the put in super fired up about what we were going to find downstream...

And what a find it was! Horizon line after horizon line, all big, all clean, no manky boulder gardens just big drop/slide combos which kept coming. Constant rain stopped most chances of pics etc but we got a few...

B running the second part of a rapid - a similar sized drop above into a slide into this. Sick!

A wee way in we came to a drop we had been waiting for. Scouting missions along with a tiny little thumbnail in kayak session from the first trip in here had us frothing about it. The drop had a tricky little entrance into a beautiful 25 foot drop. Right about now the rain stopped so we got cameras out and after some deliberation ("Bro what do reckon the line is?" "Well I dunno about you but I'm gonna boof the shit out of it!") young fulla sent it first. Everyone had sweet lines and the smiles got even bigger.

Bayly getting it done again - mean

Below the drop we carried on down for a little bit, off a sweet little eight footer and then eddied out above one of those horizon lines that looks like it's dropping off the face of the earth. Yup, the biggy - supposedly 90 feet but undoubtedly a monster.
Getting out on the deck on the left we got to the lip and found ourselves looking a long way down at a narrow spout which looked to be throwing pretty far out. Not 90 but still a big drop - dubious glances were exchanged as we tried to talk ourselves into the line.
Ryan was pretty keen but wanted to check it from the other side so more to keep him company than anything else I went over to check it with him. B and Wills were portaging by this stage not liking the view from the left. We spent a while discussing lines etc and then I think the conversation went something along the lines of; "Bro worst case scenario is landing flat and that's not going to happen - and that portage looks savage", "Yeah shall we just send it?"
So the scene was set. Ryan was fired up to go first so once B and Wills got there to set safety it was game on.
He pulled out of the eddy, took a stroke off the lip and then tucked, where I lost sight of him it looked like he had a perfect line. Turned out that he had gone pretty sideways and separated his paddle on impact. Then it was my turn. I gave the old whistle then drifted down the eddy line, I pulled out into the current and as the lip went under me I felt just a tiny touch of rock on my hull - not ideal. Luckily I was already pulling on my right blade which straightened me and lifted my nose just a little. As I tucked I saw the landing and was pretty sure I had it sorted. It ended up being a super soft hit and I rolled up to the ubiquitous Ryan Lucas scream.

Ryan sending it on the first D - 60 to 65 we reckon

My turn, getting ready for the hit.

After the big one we asssumed the river would have run out of gradient and we just had some boogie to the takeout. We were ever so mistaken. Big rapids just kept coming at us, all super cool and surprisingly clean. Including the biggest slide of the day..

"How deep do you reckon the bottom is"?

Wills probing

Ryan at the bottom giving some scale to it.

More rapids led us to still more horizon lines where we came across this gem.

Happy times

Me about to fly

Some low angle slides and fun boogie (not the usual Kaimai boulder gardens) finally got us to the take out tired, sore and super stoked at the sick day we just had. Definitely one of the best runs in the Kaimais for sure. Cant wait to go back!!

HB Gem

After a very cold stint in Wanaka/Christchurch I made it back to the Hawkes Bay on the back of a storm (and in front of an earthquake) so all of the rivers were up nice and high. I'd already recruited my little sis Harry to paddle with as she was on uni holidays. We scavenged a couple of boats and made our way up our road (the Napier/Taihape) to check out a section on the Tutaekuri river (unfortunate name that, means dog shit...) The Tutaekuri is one of the bigger rivers emptying into the Bay and for most of it's length is super shallow and braided. However right up the top it's got a bit of gradient where it drops off the Kaweka ranges.

The reason this section hadn't been run was because of two waterfalls marked on the topo map - an 8m and a 5m, which given the nature of the gorge they're in would be pretty full on to just bomb into. We'd already scouted the section prior to our Cali trip though and we were surprised to find no big drops, either the topo map was wrong (gasp) or they had been filled in with shingle from a big flood.

Anyway, Harry and I set the shuttle and walked the 15 knee destroying minutes down the Mackintosh track to the put in.

This is the first view you get of the run and the put in - pretty choice!!

As soon as we got on we found ourselves committed in a super deep and pretty inescapable gorge. The rapids alternate between little bouldery 3/4 numbers and some super fun little slides and bedrock sections.

Harry on her first creeking outing on a cool little slide with a bit of an undercut to keep the heart going

The bedrock section in the middle is super fun and waterslidey and will be sick when we get in there when she's pumping. There's a cool six foot sloper...

The point and shoot not quite up to the old 'hold the button down and get more than one shot deal'

and not coping very well with moving kayaks and lack of light. Harry testing the depth - it's deep.

The end of the bedrock section is the crux of the run with a boulder garden enticing you down and then swinging left and tightening up into a very Waihohonu-ish box hole complete with a recirculating eddy. This alone will be the deciding factor for super high water runs - not sure if it will get worse or wash out. You can't really scout or portage it either so it will be interesting...

Harry about to discover the joys of paddling upstream out the back of an eddy. It's steeper than it looks in the photo and the right hand side had a bit of a cavey pockety thing.

After this rapid there were lots more boulder gardens and another cool grade 2/3 gorge where a big side creek comes in from the right.

Harry soaking it all in in the super cool gorges.

This run was super fun and ideal for someone just getting into creeking with nothing too hard and minimal sieves/wood to deal with. Any less water than we had would make the boulder gardens pretty average. It's a mean run for us to have on the back doorstep and adds that little bit more to the area.
Not really sure who reads this stuff but if you're from the HB canoe club it would be a mean run for you to use. I've got a more guidebook type write up I can send you.

As for now I've moved back to the falls and straight back into epic spring conditions for the Kaimais. The boys have been going hard with Tuakopai, Waipapa and even a Whatakau run. To top it off we jumped on the Wainui the other day and had one of the sickest days boating I've done in NZ. Can anyone say 60 footer...

Wake up!!

Here's a little vid from our clear lake mission a while back. Shot off Josh's gopro, sorry some of the old action shots are a little shakey due to our extremely advanced filming technique (hold camera in hand while trying to balance on bouncy ass boat) Anyway, enjoy...




Next week I'm off to the other end of the spectrum - below zero temps and snow at the Burton NZ Open. Should get some mean photos. Stay tuned.