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.

rock climbing (sdl)

On Tuesday the 21st i went climbing at the sea cliffs by paynes ford with Kristy Kelly Harvey and Chris.
i hadn't climbed all summer so i got saw fingers quickly but it was good to get back in to it.
i also went climbing on Thursday in the gym at greymouth as apart of the alpine club, i'm keen as to go more this year.

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.

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.

Mountain (tec)

on the 20 of September we climbed up mt Avalanche in Arthur's pass.
we left grey mouth at 7 30 am.And started walking at 945am we had lunch 3/4 of the way up. it is 1833m to the top over 4-5 kms. it took us 4 hours to get up  and around 2 30 to get down again. it was a beautiful sunny day with barley a breeze of wind, great day out. on the way up and down we were also being quizzed on avalanches and mountain travel.

Mountain (tec)

went to temple basin on the 9th to the 12th of august.
we lernt basic mountain skills including crampon walking(sound dumb but there is alot of different was to utilise the crampon and use mininal energy) avalanch prediction and rescue, multi pitching(including different types of anchurs) , ridge travel and offen the one most people get wrong decenting.
the fist two nights we stayed in the lodge on the mountain and on the last night we made snow caves witch was vey cool... cold. was sill warmer than out in the wind.
no epics on this trip. i took my board up got about 45 min until i couldnt see the jump, was still fun.

survival week

from the 13th to the 16th we did survival. the week started with self defense on Monday, witch was quite cool.our instructor is black belt in karate so a lot of the moves came from that. on Tuesday we went out for out door survival.the scenario was that we were going on a day tramp up the valley.so we didn't have much food nor tent or sleeping bag. we had to stay out for 2 nights, the first night we stayed as a group, witch was cool had a big shelter that could just fit everyone wet.though around 1am it stopped raining so i joint toddy out by the fire and slept with a bit of room. the next day we collected fire wood for the main fire to keep it going in case we couldn't get one going. then we started out solos this meant on talking to anyone inept our instructor Dave . we started at around 2pm i found a tree that had partly fallen over so decided i could just lean my walls up against that. As everything was wet i didn't try to get a fire going thinking as long as i didn't get wet i will be all right..i started making my walls out of Thatch but this was taking too long and i had my walls rather steep. i then went on to punga leaves, i only had a small knife with half serrated edge,this made it very difficult.i started off trying to climb the pangas rather than knocking them over but this was real hard.i then went on to tying my knife on to a stick and using the reach of that to cut them down.this worked wicked.i must have had round 50 panga leaves on my hut by dark. i made the door at the low end of my hut this way it would keep more heat in and even better if i did get a fire going .i then went and got some bedding to keep me insulated from the ground. after that i decided i wouldn't try to startd a fire and just go o bed. i had a dry pear of socks on, fleece pants, over pants, thermal, T shirt, fleece top and my swanni as a blanket.i had a candle beside me to help with heat and moral. i lasted the night eating my musily bars i had saved, i was kind of cold.but in the morning when i herd about how hard some of the others done it. i also thought of a chant... this is my swanni there are many like it but this one is mine, with out me my swanni is nothing, without my swanni i am nothing, i love my swanni and my swanni loves me....

we left our group shelter up so that if anyone was getting real cold and struggling they could go back and be dry with a hot fire. but i was disappointed with 6 of my group that went back. some as early as 7 pm not really giving it a go. two of the ones that stayed out even went to the length of running around to keep warm then going back to sleep then running again when cold.i was impressed by them treating it like the real thing. 

this trip to me seemed like of of the cheapest but one of the most important.learned allot and i think the group learned allot also.

and the best part when we got out of the bush the polly brought us all fish and chips $60 worth gone in seconds :)