Last week in July

Monday 7-30-07

This past week I’ve spent most my time at school at trying to get over being sick. Earlier in the week, I ended up visiting the health center on campus because I caught an eye infection from one of my roommates and I had a little bit of bronchitis. Just getting over everything and feel pretty good now. I also ended up meeting a couple more people at school from class and just doing the school thing. Although on Friday I met up with three other boaters and we headed off to the west coast for the weekend. We drove up to Author’s Pass that cuts through the Southern Alps and stayed our first night in an alpine ski lodge. It was really plush and we had it all to ourselves. The next morning we drove about an hour to check out a creek called Crooked Creek. There are no height or water gauges here, so everyone looks at the weather to see if it has been raining, then you simple have to visually look at the river to determine if there’s enough water. So there was just enough water for us and the next thing I knew we were heading up stream. We got all geared up at the take and set out for a two hour hike in. This is definitely not something I’m use to, but I we headed up anyway. Just before I left home I bought a cheap kayaking pack back, so I can strap my boat to my back, but I soon found out this wouldn’t work for where we were going. It was a really rough trail through a more jungle like environment, up tiny streams and through really deep mud. I was exhausted the whole time and everyone else seemed to just motor right through.

Finally we made it to the creek and it was awesome; really beautiful and clean water. We paddled down the first few rapids and it gorged up quickly. We spent a lot of time looking at rapids as no one was too familiar with the water level or the run. Everything went really well and we boated some bigger drops then I expected. Then at one of the last drop I didn’t end up boofing a tin slot and went really deep. My spray skirt ended imploding and I rolled up with a boat full of water heading into some more rapids. Paddled a heavy ass boat through the next corner and into an eddy where I could swim out and empty my boat. Glad to have all my gear, we boated the rest of the way out without any more issues. So I had my first and hopefully only swim in NZ. Got back to the car and I almost forgot all about the treacherous hike in. We then drove to the “kayaking town” Hokatika. Met some more paddlers and their friends. Everyone was really cool and four of them were actually from the states. We stayed with them that evening and planned to boat the next day if there was enough water.

Sunday morning we checked out a few more creeks, but it had not rained enough to boat anything worthwhile. So we headed back to Christchurch and on the way back we stopped at an amazing rock garden I think called Castle Field. It was a popular place to boulder and climb. Took some create pictures and headed back after a few hours. Then I was back to the city and found myself in the theater watching the new Simpson’s Movie. It was a great weekend and hopefully I’ll have many more to come.

First kayaking weekend

Campus

Sumner & Christchurch

Roommates & Christchurch