DUEMSTUFF BLOG

Jonas Savšek stomping

After the freestyle competition we moved to the Jahmp™ training. I don’t know if the reason was the bad weather or just the mere size of the ramp but only 9 men and 3 women decided to try themselves in big-air competition.

Reality check was harsh after returning from New Zealand in February. A lot of work to be done on my college final paper, a job and short cold winter days meant not much paddling was on horizon. Furthermore, compared to last year, this winter wasn’t as generous with snow and not much water was coming down the Slovenian Alps this spring. Yes, this spring sucked for me from a kayaker’s point of view. Nevertheless I did join the white-water rescue training programme and I got to train as an instructor under supervision of Slovene water rescue guru Urban Herzog. If I don’t feel my best as a kayaker at least you can rely on me to be more accurate throwing stones at you when you get stuck in some sticky hole. Keep that in mind when looking for a companion to some crazy creeks this summer!

Safety crew

Even though our last days in New Zealand were approaching we still had some paddling to do. While driving up from Otaki we decided to stop at Huka Falls. The stop was only brief as none of us wanted to take a chance at 200+ cumecs flow. The beat down scenarios that we imagined in our heads were enough to scare us off. For now that is…

Huka Falls

At Mahinapua Lake

A weekend of rest we took was long and boring but at least we met some new friends. We tried to have some kind of a party on Friday but we only got kicked out of the Mahinapua Tavern by its owner saying “you’re not welcome here” before we even ordered a beer.  According to locals most male guests aren’t welcome there anyways so we didn’t get really upset by it.

Happy Whitcomb team. All photos taken on Janez Čižman’s camera. I lost mine before I even got to the river.

It usually takes two days to paddle the Whitcomb River. It can be done in a day if you are really quick, but we were in no hurry to get stranded somewhere in a canyon, especially after what happened to our friends two days before.

Fired-up and ready to go

Feeling rejuvenated by the day of rest, we decided to challenge the surreal Kokatahi River. Kokathi is one of the hardest rivers in the area and surely not a one for the faint-hearted. Bruce took us up again and told us it was maybe the lowest river flow anyone had ever attempted to paddle.  Kaokatahi is steep and intensive so it needs to be low, but a few more centimetres wouldn’t hurt a few “bony” rapids.

The day for a first serious trip had finally come.  Dany Fenzl, us and two other kayakers decided to go to Waitaha. We called Bruce Dando, a local helicopter pilot legend to take us up. Waitaha landing site is an hour drive south of Hokitika and we were really in a hurry to get there in time. We barely made it there before Bruce.  Helicopter ride was just sweet, as the locals would say. Smooth takeoff, ride and landing made me feel no fear, which is quite strange if you know how scared I am of flying with commercial airplanes. I guess as long as I see what pilot is doing it’s OK.

Bruce Dando delivering us to put-in

New tents turned out to be a somehow not so good investment. When we woke up in the morning it was really wet inside, even though it didn’t even rain.  Well, what could we expect after paying only about 30€ per each.  It seems  we have more luck than brain as the weather forecast is good for next ten days – exceptional for the West Coast as they told us.

Tuesday was the day to hit the road to South Island. But there was one more stop we had to do before. We had to go to the Bliss Stick factory to get some brand new Mystic boats we were going to use in the south. That definitely sounds easier than it turned out to be. While it should have taken us about three hours to get there, we made one wrong turn just before the factory and ended up doing an additional hour and a half on a dirt road. At least we got to see some sheep. Well actually we saw a lot of sheep, more sheep than I have probably seen before in my entire life.

After running the MacLarens Falls, Monday was no day to rest. We hooked up with Mike, Matic Lesjak, Louise Jull, Ciaran Heurteau and Roselyn Lawrence to run the infamous Gnarly Gorge. Gnarly is a narrow gorge that starts just bellow the Okere Falls run on Kaituna River. It is claustrophobic, steep and tree infested, which makes it a fearsome and dangerous run. You can never really tell if there are no trees blocking the whole gorge until you run it. Any new tree is a potential death trap.

How delighted can a kayaker be if he has to publish his first blog post all the way from New Zealand? Anyone even slightly familiar with kayaking sphere will know that New Zealand is a Mecca for kayakers and one of the unquestionable must do’s.  What a way to start my new Duemstuff blog!