Lower Rangitata and Tekapo Release (fun fun fun)

More kayaking this week. And, I must admit, against all my preconceptions, I actually enjoyed it. Weird I know.

(Glynns car is looking good don’t ‘cha think? :)

So I didn’t exactly enjoy having to get up at 06:20 after Tills party (a reasonable amount had been imbibed). I was pretty petrified at the first glance at the river. We’ve had quite a bit of rain over the last wee while and the river was quite full. I didn’t even have a creek boat (read nice boat with lots of volume and no nasty lines to tip you over) to paddle, and I felt lot more off-balance in the boat.

Still, with Waricks ‘PADDLE PADDLE PADDLE’ echoing from last year in my ears I got down all the rapids intact. In fact, not even a swim. Of course this means I wasn’t playing hard enough (but it also meant I was keeping my hot body out of the freezing water).

The pic above was Dave playing in the final rapid.

Then it was off to Tekapo to camp for the evening.

(pic from the trip with Mick – no I didn’t have the BMW this time!!)

Meridion Energy dammed the lake and made a massive canal down through multiple power-generating dams town to the coat. When they did this they changed the river patterns (no kidding) and a condition of being allowed to proceed was that every year (12 times I believe) they release water down through a specially constructed white-water course.

It was kinda fun to watch it fill up.

The course itself is a 3 (or 3+ maybe?) so that’s out of my league at the moment. Especially as the sides are brushed concrete that would happily rip through wetsuit and skin with ease.. maybe next time I’ll run it!

We did the grade 2 which leads onto the course.. but also – there’s a play wave at the top of the course which is safe enough to get onto, and really fun to just try to have a go at playing.

I had a go on it, got capsized a few times and had a couple of swims.. however.. it was lots and lots and lots and lots and…lots of fun!. I put a short video up of me on the wave… I was pretty happy with my (very short lived) performance!! :)

This weekend being Easter we get Friday and Monday off – so it’s off up to Paynes Ford for some climbing.. fingers crossed we get the weather. Otherwise it’ll just have to be lots of time spent in the mussel inn. Sigh.