rafting ( client days)

on the last week of June Grace, Gretchen, Owen and i had our client days down the Arnold.
This was my fist time ever taking clients down a river.
Tuesday (day one) the river was quite high and we went down way faster than we had planed. but the guys we had still enjoyed them selves as they were a older lot and enjoyed the scenery. I got out at jump cliff and ran the shuttle. Just as I got to the take out and turned around the rafters pulled up to the bank. perfect timing.
Wednesday we did better on timing. we had young kids so we were able to just have fun with them. one girl got  asthma when we did the cliff jump. Zane ( our tutor) said he had his inhaler with him but he didn't, so we sat her on the bank got here in to some dry fleeces and helped her control her breathing. me and Zane gave her a group hug wile the others played games.  Zane told me at the end of the day that she quite liked that and may have been playing it up for the attention. just another thing to watch out for.
Thursday was my TL day. We had 3 different groups. Zane gave me a run down on how i needed to do my meet and great.... i screwed it up. well not too bad but could have been alot better. bad start but once we go to the put in every thing fall in to place and we had a fun day down the river. the river had gone down so we didn't float as fast. got the timing prity dam good today.
last day Friday...



here are some photos from the trip on Thursday....

blog summery

			blog summery		up dated 24/9/2012
		2011		2012
bush (p)				0
bush(i)				0
bush(tpp)				4
rafting(P)				4
rafting(G)				3
rafting(tpp)				12
ww kayaking(P)				16
wwkayaking(i) river				2
wwkayaking(i)rolling				2
wwkayaking(i) flat water				1
wwkayaking(tpp)				10
rock(p)				4
rock(i)				4
rock(tpp)				10
sea kayaking (p)				0
seakayaking(i)				0
seakayaking(tpp)				0

rock ( sdl )

On the 23 Ekies, Kirsten, Rebecca and I drove up to Nelson. The next day we got up early and drove over to Takaka and went climbing at paynes ford. We went in to the hangdog campground and brought a guide book (only 10 bux)
It was a beautiful sunny day and we got some good climbs in. Ekies and I started on a climb that Ekies said was a 18. I went first and was really struggling. I asked Ekies if he was sure it was a 18 and he said he was, so I assumed I just wasn't used to the rock their as this was my first time there. Once i got down we checked the book again and it turned out to be a 21. So i didn't feel so bad. the rest of the day went well. I set up a lot of top rope climbs for the others as i felt the first bolt always seemed real exposed. This is also why i didn't push myself too much.
That night we stayed at hangdog and climbed the next day till lunch with the girls. At lunch the girls went home and Ekies and I kept climbing. There was a wicked over hang ( rawhide ) I wanted to try but the first bolt at the end of the over hang and the ground was uneven and would be hard to spot. but luckily one other climber ( Pablo ) did the climb later in the day and asked if we wanted to give it a go on top rope. I was so stoked, and gave it a go. It was such a cool start, got some sweet heel hooks. And getting over the end to the up right is another sweet move. I was the end of the day so i didn't get much further.
On Thursday I wanted to do another over hang. We looked around for good 40 min and found a 19 that had a first bolt wasn't too exposed. It was soo mean lead it the first time and set up top rope for Ekies. He gave it a good go but didnt have the strength. We will deffintly give it another go next time. While it was still on top rope i had another go choosing a different line, and i found a no hands rest on the over hang and we got a photo too.We were going to do some more climbs that morning but we got yarning to some NMIT tutors then got a little lost for 20min when we got out of the bush we were back at the van so called it a day as we had to drive home that day too. We found it didn't have many easy climbs for bignners but if you getting into the 18s and up its a great place. Cant wait to go back again.

no hands rest

Kirsten on sweet 18

Ekies going for it

Rebecca getting the feet right

Ekies ready to go

checking out the new route