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 

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

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.