kayak ( sdl )

11 September went for another run down the styks.
When walking up we thought the river was lower but once we got to the put in we could see that it was slightly higher. Also a lot colder as snow had fallen the night before and was now melting in the sun.
We had 10 of us all up. 6 of us up on at the grade four and the others put on were they felt comfortable.
the day went mostly well it was a bit hard with so many people on a small river but it was managed well.
we had a few mishaps, I was first, I tried to eddy out because the guys in front had eddied out earlier than planed and i didn't want to solo down the next bit. Ended up rolling on a shallow bit trying to get an eddy that wasn't really there. I got scraped along for a bit, found a rock to push off and while i did that Phil was there pulling me over. The next was Dan, he got his line right but the water didn't do what he thought it would and he got pushed ot a bad spot. it was hard to see from where i was but he got kind of pined but was able to get out of his boat easily. Rata had Phil on tethered swimmer and he jumped across to help and Greg was able to jump across rocks and swim to assist also. Grace had a swim, cleaned up quick. Astraea rolled right beside me. from when she went over it only took me 3 to 4 seconds to grab here for a barrel roll but she had swam already. she said she got caught on a rock and freaked. she was fine for the next rapid or too but then caught a rock going in to a eddy and it over whelmed her and she walked the last 300 m.
For me it was another good as day kayaking, bit scary rolling in the shallow but I'm getting more comfortable under the water. I might have some footage on here at a latter date.

kayak ( sdl )

6th and 7th of September did two of by far the most technical ( styks) and the biggest ( high toaroha).
on the 6th did the styks with greg dan and phil went up to the grade 4. phill greg and martijn did on rapid further 4+ - 5. astro and sara got in at the grade 3.
the styks medium and it was cloudy with bit of rain here and there. including the walk in it took us all day. about 4 hours on the river with alot of scouting. dan went over when going off a boof but roled back up in time to make the next one. i rolled playing on a wave on the grade 3. ( haven't had a combat roll for a wile )
it was the best run i had done so far, technical and pushy.
for the toaroha it was greg, sara, phill, harvy and me.Deffently high, weather was the same, bit more rain. We walked up around the coner from the normal put in ( just out of the bush ). sara got in one rapid below us. we ran the first rapid, Greg and me then Phill and Harvy. me and greg didnt realy know the line. and we showed the line to the others when at the bottum... Phil didnt quite go right enough ( see video below ). Sara ran two rapids but got out below the rapid by the track and she walked out. We then ran the next rapid truck and trailer ( big waves and hols here and there ). Harvy got a working almost swam but got washed and rolled up, then went over again and back up again. He was prity shaken and decided to walk out as well.
Greg, Phil and i carried on and had a mad run here is the video made by me...

This is the video of the styks river made by Martijn Van Den Broeke...

kayak ( sdl)

on the 23 of the august martijn, ben and I decided it was time to step up and run cesspit gorge on the Arahura river.
We left grey at around 9 and were up scouting the rapid at 11 30.
the river was real low and we thought we might miss out on cave drop and the  buffer. but once we were at the top of the rapid it looked like the buffer was good to go. so we doped in and the video will show what went down. i didn't find the run too scary apart from bens mishap. I think this was because it wasn't pushy like it normally is. we plan on going back as soon as the rain drops again here in Greymouth.

video made by Martijn Van Den Broeke.

kayak ( sdl )

toaroha on the 9/9
it was mid flow
weather was cold rain with some hail.
another mad run. really good at this flow. the main drop was the best that i have run it at. the curler was powerful. no problems just good times.

kayak (sdl)

On the 16 June i was in Wanaka with Jess bailey champion slalom paddler. i went out training with her last time I was down too but this time her dad came out and ran the training. it was just a flat water training with gates but it was still a great importunity to train with New Zealands best and get so helpful pointers on my paddling. Jess has her own bog as well check it out at jessicabaileykayakslalomathlete.blogspot.com

kayak (sdl)

on the 10th I went up to murch with Ari, Rob and Jake. we paddled O sullies run. and the mangles.

first O sullies. it was at high flow wale creek rapid was flat and we were able to paddle the falls. on the first rapid of the run Rob had a swim at the botum and got washed into the boily eddy on the right. i went in behind him to help. after alot of pushing and bumping around in the eddy we mannaged to get him to the bank and my flip line attached to the kayak and him holding the line. i then got out of my kayak and gave him a hand. this odeal was shit for Rob but was good for my rescue skills and i thanked him for that. i even had a roll in the eddy( it was a poor roll but got me up just ) i need to work on getting my paddle right out of the water. i seem to have trubble with this when in the boiles. further down at jet boat rapit we decided to portage it was running a bit above our level today.

The mangles was quite mallow as the flow was less than we expected. but up the top we found a wee creek that had some cool as we drops so we scouted and ran them here is the raw footage.

kayak (sdl)

on the 9th of June I walked up the totarha with Martijn Watson Dan. We went up another two rapids further after you exit the bush line. it was at medium flow i had only done it at low flow so it looked high to me. the whole day went sweet. real good solid grade 3. don't have any photos of this one but it was wicked fun run.

kayak (sdl)

25 th paddled the crooked and on the 26th paddled the Arnold
both trips were cool was real low but found some sweet waves to have a jam in. i pulled some new wee tricks.
a had a dam swim on the Arnold! i freaked out on the buffer wave again.
it was real weird paddling white water kayaks after sea kayaking for 8 days. i tell you if you need to improve sweep stroke do some sea kayaking because those things dont turn if you dont put some efort in.the little redline was spinning on a pin. one of the coolest crooked and Arnold trips.

sea kayaking (tec)

10 day sea kayaking trip  from the 15 to the 24th of august.
the first day was just traveling to the Able Tasman. the next 3 and a half days we spent paddling up and back down the Able Tasman.We then went over to nelson were we went out and got some freshes for the next 5 days . we then camped out at the Marlborough sounds, and spent the next 4 days paddling up around there. and on the last day we just drove back.
the weather was as good as we could have hoped for.witch made the experience even better.
up the Able Tasman we saw cub seals, soo cute haha. and in the Marlborough sounds we saw a massive boil up seals fish dolphins and birds all going crazy around us. we say the same set of dolphins on the last day too. i bought my hand line and caught around 7 fish,3 blue cod witch 2 were big enough to take.so i had 2 and Brent got 3, we took them on the beach were the others had muscles. Brent filleted his fish and taught me how then i did mine... first time ever doing it,3 near perfect filet's and one av. i was stoked as.
This trip for me had alot of ups and downs but i think that that is what made it such an amazing trip. oh and the 2 instructors Brent(bulet or boyze) and nick(taz) were soo much fun and really made the trip that much better great guys and great instructors.

kayak (sdl)

22 of June after tec went out to the Arnold with Ben, Grace and Sara. It was real low,below the log at the bridge put in. this made the first rapid rather bony. I thought the features were going to be lame but there was about 5 wicked waves.
i got my favorite kayak back, it just felt right. This was the coolest Arnold trip I've had so fare I was really geting the hang of riding waves.
I cant think of what els to say i was just amped. After i got off a wave, Sara said that I was just buzzing. And i was. When we got out I just wanted to go back to the top and do it again.

kayak (sdl)

on Thursday Harvy and i went down the crooked. we intended on walking in 15 min to do the grade three but it had been raining all morning and the river was most defiantly in flood. we had never did it this high before (i could almost reach up and touch the yellow string across the river at lower put in) we decided we would run the lower part and scouting anywhere we were unsure about. all went well it did have some mallow bits were there used to be rapids but the bolder garden about half way was a bunch of holes and was supper cool booming down them. defiantly recommend it.

kayak (sdl)

On the 5th of February  a big group of ten second years from TPP went to the Toharoa.
We did the grade 3 walk in section.(40 min walk)
The river was low.
It was a cloudy day but was still hot.
We got out and scouted 3 rapids and Greg, Rata and Phil also gave us alot of advice on witch line to take and if anyone should portage the rapid.
this was my first grade 3 river and the most fun I've had on a river. It was great having Greg ,Phil and Rata to give me pointers on how i went and the line to take.This was also the first time i had used my new boat and paddle. I was a bit nervous at the start but then i banged out couple solid rolls on both sides then i was ready to go. cant wait to do my next grade 3.

kayak (sdl)

11 of June went down the crooked with Rhymie, Grace and Adrien.
The flow was higher than normal. i nervously paddled the first grade 3 rapid.
I borrowed a friends rpm max, was a bit big and felt weird after my normal boat.but got the hang of it.
no problems, was different paddling with the second years they did more  technical moves witch was good for me to follow. Rhymie and I ran the shuttle, only took us 35 min to get back to the girls.

kayak (sdl)

Saturday the 4 of June went down the Crooked river.it was just high enough to do the grade three rapid at the put in so few of us gave it a go.was cool.
weather was good.river was cold as usual.
had a bit of trouble finding the farmer for the key to his gate. the farmers brother was there, i asked him and he went out to the truck but froze up because he had parkinsons and hadn't taken his pills yet.i helped him to the door but he couldn't get any further. Chris had found the key and came to get me.Chris got the guys pills then we carried him inside and sat him on his chair,the pills kicked in prity quick.He was quite great full.
i took my camera and got some cool footage..

        This is me doing a whoopy and a role

This is me doing the seal launch.

kayak (sdl)

Monday 6th of June. got 7 of the orecers together and went down the Miltown gorge.
It was low to normal flow, the features were a bit smaler than when we went with tec ,but still fun to play around in.

Robbie Williams.

started of a nice sunny day but ended up drisiling the last half of the river.
We had a bit of a upset doing the shutle, two of the boys ran back to get the vans but they had never done it befor.We ended up waiting 3 hours befor they came back.in this time we had caled a Dan to pick us up and do the shutle,hoping the boys wernt injured or realy lost.the boys came back as Dan came to pick up up for the shutle.Dan brang towls and warm raro for us to warm up. every think worked out fine in the end but could have been alot worse.
I did get some cool fotos of the crew too...

Grace Slee

Martiln Vandenbroeke

Robbie Wiliams

Chris harvey

kayaking week two(tec)

on the 15march to the 19 march my group did another week of kayaking.alot of this week was based on rescue.we did a morning in the pool to critec our role,T rescue,H rescue and get introduced on how to do a deep water rescue. that day and Thursday we did all of this out on the river(Arnold). on Friday we went to the ardahuda,we put in at the section above the red shed.a new run for all the students.this day was about working in small groups and navigating our way safely down the river.we had an unexpected swimmer,witch was fun because we got to put the new rescue techniques into action. all in all another great week on the water learning lots.

kayaking week one(tec)

From the first to the forth of march my group at tec started our first week of kayaking. the first few days we were in the pool and on flat water.this was good for everyone to learn hoe to role.i learn to role on both sides but couldn't get the hand role. the next couple days we got to go out on the rivers.the first river we went on was the grey, it was good to get out there though there was little rapids we practiced our rolling in moving water,river navigation and getting in and out of eddies.we also went on the adahuta for half a day there was i big buffer wave close to the rocks with a eddie on the outer side.i tried a couple times to get to it on my 2nd try i flipped,tyred to role couple times(couldn't),so banged on my boat and waited hoping someone would T rescue me but didn't have enough time.yep i swam.the next day we got to go out to the Arnold.this was heps of fun.we practiced the same stuff again but this time there was alot of eddies in the middle of the river,boules and wave that we had a go at riding.there was a cool buffer wave,i rode it a couple times but on last try a flipped couldn't role,panicked and swam,i was real annoyed for not holding on for longer and trying again.
still had some good runs and learnt alot cant wait to go again!