raft kayak ( sdl )

rafting and kayaking in Murch for three days.

day one drizzled all day. we did a warm up river for Astraea. middle Mataks. i biked the shuttle. no problems apart from Astraea had a freak-out but we got through it.

day two rafted down O sullies and milked it. everyone had a guide and all improved allot. I guided whale creek and jet boat. was supper stoked with my line on jet boat. In the afternoon had a look at Maruia but didn't run it.

day three did double run on Granite. first run we all had a go apart from Granite rapid. Harvey ran first and did all good. then we worked the raft back up and I had a go guiding. I had a sweet line. Then on the second run we kayaked it. Just Harvey Dan and I went Astraea ran shuttle. We went down truck and trailer. Harvey then me then Dan. Harvey misted his line a little and got worked at the bottom of the buffer and the again in the next hole, came out fine. I got my line perfect soooo stoked with it. Dan got his line but nose dived in to the eddy behind the buffer rock and got spat back out, got a bit of a working then rolled and got in to the eddy. We were all peeking. perfect level for us. great trip. Then the boys were feeling brave so we went to do Maruia ( not me though) got there and Dan did it. Harvey said he was going to but bailed. still what a day. 

not over yet. I'm off to go climbing at the local climbing gym in Greymouth. 

life is good!

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....

raft ( tec )

On the 1st of april i went to rangatata rafts. we went down the river everyday, taking turns guiding down the rapids and doing the safety talks.
When we got there the river was at around 50 cumex and buy thursday it had droped to around 45. rangatata rafts go down it right up to 200 cumex.
the weather was good as every day. in the mornings there was a cool mist along the river but burned off by around 10 to a beautiful day

rafting(tec)

Last week from the 27 to 30th we had raft it was a lot of fun. on Tuesday we went to lake Brunner to learn some paddle strokes and what to do it the raft flips then it was off to the Arnold. it was rather low today. we went down taking turns at guiding.our tauter today was Koran i was finding it hard to get the hang of it but was good start. Wednesday we had a short classroom session then went to the Arnold again and did much the same stuff, I felt I went allot better.our tauter today was Southey .Thursday was cool day we went to the grey river (gentle Annie section).our tauter today was Phil Jonson. I went shit couldn't catch many of the Eddy's Phil told me to get so I was disappointed with this day.and on Friday we went back to the Arnold and it was real low but made for some good rock dodging.we had Southey again today, I went alright but i think i need more time on the guide stick to get the hang of it. hopefully next week I get better I plan to do raft next year so want to get the hang of it.