Central North Island trip
6/7th October 2001
Paddlers: Tony, Pete, Nicky, Andy, Louie, Matt & Clint
It was not our fault this time. Blame the Aussies is what I say. It was never going to be the easiest trip to
organise. Nic was up in Auckland for the day and not due back until 5:30pm, so
we knew we would be late away. It all got a bit worse when Nic rang at 4:30pm to
say the plane had not even left due to a navigation problem. Hell, it’s only New
Zealand. I am sure they can find Wellington from Auckland. However, it was a
Qantas plane, so no doubt the people flying it were Australian. Nic finally
managed to get her flight straight to Taupo, saving herself the 4 ½ hr trip
up.
Back in Wellington we (Pete, Tony & myself) were now in a rush. Thinking we had heaps of time as Nic hadn’t
left Auckland we were taking our time. Next thing it was “Come on lets go!” We
thought the other guys would be a bit ahead of us, but they had had dramas of
their own. Matt had been on the wrong side of a drivers target practice. A car
had pulled in front of him and sent him into its windshield, leaving his bike in
a very sorry state.
After all of this both cars made it
to Levin for dinner about 8pm and were in Taupo by about 11pm where we found Nic
wrapped up on the couch watching Friday night TV. While Pete and Tony were out
to get food the other guys arrived. Unsure of exactly which house we were
staying in they knocked on the door and were calling from the hallway “Hello,
are we in the right place?” Nic & I did our best impression of pissed off
locals and told them “No, you’ve got the wrong place, get out of our house.”
This left the boys a little confused and all we heard as they closed the door
and headed back to the van was “Sorry.” At this point I thought we better let
them know they were in the right place, otherwise they would really start
terrorising the neighbours. With everyone safely in Taupo we discovered another
problem, where was the 4th bedroom. It took us about 15mins to notice the door
off the porch, which we had been walking past since we had arrived. We found out
the next day that was pretty good. The family who had stayed in the place the
week before had taken 2 days to find it.
Clint in the hole below Jeffs Joy
Right, onto the fun stuff as this trip report is starting to have as much faf as
any trip Dave A goes on, and he wasn’t even on this one. Saturday dawned,
crap. Low cloud and showers. We planned to be on the road by 10am, and for
once we were early. (Note above, Dave A was not on this trip). The plan
was to paddle the Rangataiki (Jeffs Joy & bottom section). Nic decided
to meet us at the middle get in. So the boys were off to do the top
section, but not before more drama. Pete suddenly realised that
he had left his helmet in Wellington. This after he had been checking if I had
all my gear after I left it behind for the Queens Birthday trip. Fortunately,
Andy had a spare helmet so we were away again. Pete got out
at the middle, and Nic got in. This is when we found out Pete had also
packed Nic’s gear, and forgotten her helmet too. Again Andy came to the
rescue. Where he kept pulling these helmets from I don’t
know. Upon reaching the bottom we had a couple of
options. Go and see if Full James was flowing or run the top section again.
After a quick discussion Louie, Matt and myself decided to run the top section
again while Andy filled the van up in Murapara. It all worked out spot on. We
did a quick run, with little playing and arrived at the get out just as the van
pulled up. We probably could have timed it a little later and that way the
sandwiches would have been ready for us as soon as we got off the water. But I
guess we were pretty happy with the service. It was still quite early so we
decided to stop off at Full James on the way back. Andy wasn’t too sure of his
way back through the forest so was going to follow us. However, he must have got
impatient as he took of ahead of us and was long gone. We were a little
concerned he would not remember all of the turn-offs. He did a pretty good job,
but missed the last vital corner. We got to Full James and called them to see
where they were and let them know it was not flowing. They said they were on the
Napier-Taupo Road about 45km from Taupo, which is nearly further away than when
they started!
Saturday night was a good night with
a few beers and wines, some great food and plenty of arsehole played. (That’s a
card game for those unaware). Don’t forget to put your watches forward 1 hour
before you go to bed.
Sunday morning we were not up as
early as on Saturday. After a drive down to the local kayak shop where Louis
bought a new spray deck we headed off to the get in for Access 14 where we were
to meet a couple of locals who were going to guide us down the river. None of
our group had done this section before and the get out is critical as down
stream from there is Tree Trunk Gorge. We were also planning to paddle Access
13, which is the section below Tree Trunk Gorge. This also has a critical get
out with Waikato Falls down stream. Things sounded good the flow was 25 cumecs,
due to the rain on Saturday. The shuttle took of only to return 5 minutes later.
They had checked the gauge when they got to the top of the hill and the river
had dropped to 15 cumecs (getting a bit low), it then dropped even more to 10
cumecs 5 minutes later. God had turned the water off. Well maybe not. The water
had been stopped for the hydro scheme. With our plans for a new run shot down we
had to fall back on the reliable Access 10, running at a higher flow (25
cumecs). This saw a couple of swims. Andy at the bottom of the very first rapid
after doing some surfing and then getting pushed into the bluff. Very early in
the trip for a swim, at least he had a wet suit on so was no too cold. Nic also
had a swim after also being pushed into a bluff at the bottom of a rapid. Other
than these moments the trip was free of moments.
We finally made it off the river at
6pm and had the long trip home to look forward to. Cheers to all who paddled for
a good weekend and especially to Tony for organising it all. Now bring on
Buller.
Cheers,
Clint
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