Queens Birthday weekend 2001 Rangataiki, Tongariro, Kaituna Present: Clint (but not his paddle gear!), Dave, Steve, Colin, Louis, Pete, Nic The trip got off to a slow start in the usual long weekend traffic. After dialing through a traffic report to Steve from Paraparaumu and hearing groans from the other end we didn’t hear from them again until Taihape. We were most bewildered to find they were having dinner in Woodville(!!) and most amused to discover we were talking to Steve in the toilet – as was the police officer who was breath testing Pete at the time! Apparently they had decided the scenic route through the Waiarapa was preferable to sitting backed up in traffic all the way to Waikanae – we were a bit concerned they were off to do the Mohaka instead! After seeing a few flashing lights on the Desert Road and an awesomely eerie view of Ruapehu freshly covered in snow we made it to Taupo. The van only arrived around an hour behind, around about the time Clint realised that something was amiss – everyone else was unpacking bags of paddle gear…..except him! Ooops! This meant that he was on ‘search out some hire gear’ and ‘buy and cook the eggs duty’ next morning. (Cockup No 1 in “The Epic”). After a stop in the metropolis of Murupara and fully stacked with food and chocolate bars it was off to Anawhenua to once more show the mighty falls who was king.  Colin’s new boat (and pride and joy) was christened! One casualty, however, was Pete – so excited was he at Colin’s christening he raced over the rocks to get in his boat and sprained his ankle (Cockup No 2 in “The Epic”) Hollywood! Or was it just a cunning ploy to wimp out of paddling the mighty Kaituna?? Dave, Colin and Clint showing different styles over Aniwhenua Falls. Anawhenua was a nice warm-up – the surf wave was performing up to its usual standard and the sun was shining. However, the sun hadn’t shone quite so much on the upper run of the Rangitaiki, as we discovered when we made it to our second run of the day, in typical Kupe fashion, at 3pm. Frost all over the ground and down both river banks is not the confidence booster you need when trying this section for the first time! Needless to say the frozen fingers struggled to do up paddle gear! Pete had decided not to squeeze his foot (which by now was doing an impression of a tennis ball attached to the side of his ankle) into his boat and generously offered his pogies to Louis. Following instructions from Dave I paddled down the first rapid thinking this was all fine – the nasty stuff is down below! Hah! Never think that on a river. That is when the river decides to knock you over, resist your first roll and then roll you up pinned to the side of a big friendly moss covered rock. Hmm. Problem Number one. Now problem number two was that the river decided to pull my paddle out of my hand to allow me to grab the rock with the other hand. Louis very kindly paddled past and tried to pull me off the rock – needless to say I wasn’t very happy about this assistance with no paddle in hand and no idea what was around the corner! Apparently my paddle was….just around the corner that is. Standing vertically out of the water all by itself signaling to those up river that something wasn’t quite as it should be! (Cockup No3 in “the Epic”). Clint and Colin sensibly sat in an eddy and were glad it wasn’t them! Steve jumped out and threw his throw rope. It seemed ages before this happened – I was changing my grip on the moss regularly as each piece would gradually start to pull away from the rock and my boat would start to nudge its way around the side. I was starting to run out of moss! There was no way I was swimming! And, not knowing my paddle was just around the corner, there was no way this rock and I were parting company!Steve’s throw rope got nicely snagged around the back of the rock meaning he couldn’t haul me in so I grabbed the rope and hand over hand pulled my boat and myself across to shore. After some interesting manoeuvres Steve also managed to navigate his way into the middle of the river to rescue my paddle. My Hero! I was pretty happy to call it a day on the freezing river bank and decided to walk back up, paddle across to the get-in, leave my boat there and run down to the get out where I found Pete elevating his swollen ankle – what a pair! Oh well – I had wanted to fit a run in this weekend anyway! Little did I know at that stage that Louis in his eagerness to pull me off that rock, had decided he would also try to free my paddle. This involved pulling his hands out of a pogie – not used to wearing them, resulting in him losing his paddle, being knocked over, and hand-rolling his way down to just above Fantail Falls and Jeffs Joy. Dave took off after him as he thought the facial expression each time his head came above water (as we heard many times in the pub that night) was that of a dying man. Louis assures us he always looks like that! The paddle and pogies were never seen again. Louis has not yet lived down losing Pete’s ‘custom made fleece lined’ pogies and is also in the market for a new paddle!Waiting for the others to finish, another car came racing down the access road – presumably more crazy kayakers on the river at 5pm in the middle of winter. But no – out jumps Colin – he had also decided not to paddle after seeing my antics, but the tinarse had managed to scab a ride out here in the middle of nowhere! As per usual over a few wines and beers at The Hobler the ankle swelling grew as did the number of handrolls Louis did, as did the ferociousness of Anawhenua falls and any other tall tales of the day. The only thing that decreased was the temperature – everything was frozen in Taupo that night. Next morning a sleep in was in order for all those sensible folk who were not paddling Kaituna – ie. Pete and Nic. While the other boys faffed around and finally bundled themselves nervously into the van, Pete and I had a relaxing breakfast at Replete and a wander around the shops of Taupo. We then proceeded at a leisurely pace to Rotorua and on to the mighty Kaituna, expecting to catch the boys at the main waterfall. We found them fully clothed and still, after all this time, pondering the main drops. You know what they say – the amount of time spent getting trashed by a hydraulic is directly proportional to the amount of time spent looking at it thinking how much you don’t want to go near it!  Finally, at around 2 pm they mustered the courage to don smelly wet paddle gear and get in their boats. Luckily nobody spent any time getting trashed on either drop by the carpark – all executed them pretty smoothly just with a bit of a kick from the bottom hole(the weir). Below Okere Falls, just above the weir. Next was the big waterfall – by now we had an excited entourage of tourists following the boys on every drop – they raced around to the viewing platform with us and wished each paddler well as they proceeded downwards, followed by oohs and aahs! There were some interesting lines – the look on Steve’s face when he emerged thinking he was sweet, only to look behind him and notice that he was rapidly being sucked back towards the waterfall was entertaining to say the least. Of course the tourists had words of wisdom – “paddle!!” And Steve had a few utterances of his own which couldn’t possibly be repeated in these hallowed pages.Colin’s line went well, however somehow his deck got “sucked off his boat” and he popped up standing vertically in his semi submerged boat. After the anticipation – (some spent a good hour or two sitting at the top looking down before proceeding!! well maybe I exaggerate a little….) and the excitement, Pete and I wandered back to the car and drove down to the end thinking there couldn’t be much else on the river and ready to pick up the fired up paddlers! We waited and waited and….you got it…..Waited. We knew when we only saw Steve and he was towing a nice new green Pyranha 230 that something was rotten in the state of Denmark. We tried to get Colin’s boat ashore above the last play hole but alas we failed and our attempts below the play hole weren’t too successful either. The consequence of this was a little trip over the Grade 6 waterfall below all by itself and a few more utterances from Steve! We then roped in locals and all for a rescue mission for the boat, still hoping that Colin was faring somewhat better and not knowing what had happened to him.  The boat washed up in an eddy and we hauled it from the water bent nose, hole and all. Knowing the unnatural attachment that boys have to their boats I knew this wasn’t good. When the others arrived the story unfolded and Colin’s trip down the Kaituna became that of Kupe Legend. He had managed to get nicely pinned in an undercut bracing himself against the walls and perching himself above the water – apparently he was there for a good, long ten minutes or so before Clint came up with a way to float a paddle to him on the end of a throw rope. It was certainly a weekend to remind you of the value of throw ropes. He had released his boat to Steve who had accompanied it downstream as it filled slowly with water and became a dead weight. And I was right the bent nose and the hole – not good – although Colin assured me not long after the trip that a hot bath and some plastic welding worked wonders. For the rest of the weekend however it was the mighty duct tape to the rescue! After wallowing in the Rotorua hot pools the boys returned and we all went out for a bite and some shifty games of darts and pool. The last day of the trip was somewhat less eventful. Well, we had to prove to the new boy (Louis) that we could have a rescue-free river trip! Not incident free of course – there were some unpleasant incidents on the side of the river that I’m sure Dave and Pete would prefer to forget – we blame the Burger King burger they shared in Turangi! The moral of the story, Dave, is don’t wear a wetsuit when you’ve got the sh**s. With too many events for one paddle trip – especially one in the middle of winter! – it is little wonder that it is now affectionately referred to as the Epic. Little surprise then when I put an email around to my polo team, which just happened to include Louis, asking for team name suggestions– he replied “What about ‘Epic’”. And the name has stuck!< PS Many thanks to all those who paddled, Nic