So up at 6:30 on Saturday morning, over to Rohan's flat with my gear by 7:30, and out of Wellington with Rohan and Andrew by 8:00. We met Mark's car in Waikanae, and then headed up to Taihape. The get-in for the upper-Rangatiki is about 40 minutes drive along the Napier-Taihape road - about half of it unsealed. We got there around 12:00, drove the shuttle and got on the water around 1:00pm.
The first half the river is reasonably straightforward. There is one good play-spot called "pop-up", which we spent an hour or so at. The first of the serious rapids is "Storm" which has munched me in the past, but not this time! Shortly after "Storm" is where I usually get out (at the get-out from hell - a climb up a 10-15 metre cliff face followed by a 20 - 30 minute walk up a steep hill to the road). Even though I was uncertain what was ahead of me, I was happy not to be taking that option.
And what was ahead of me were five or six tricky rapids that all required quite definite moves with generally not pleasant consequences of making mistakes. Fortunately, with the river level being lowish, the moves were not as hard as they might have been, and with Paul Calcott's excellent guidance ("Catch that eddy", "Go this way", "Watch out for that bluff") I made it down mostly OK.
Mostly that is, apart from a rapid called "See-Thru". I screwed up doing a relatively simple ferry glide, and ended up going backwards down a horrible boulder-choked part of the river. That might have been OK (many will tell you that I'm used to going down rapids backwards) but then I flipped up as well! Now my boat was getting bashed around on rocks - how it didn't get pinned I'll never know. After 10 or 15 seconds of this, my boat and I made it to the bottom. My spray deck had come off and my boat was full of water, but I was still in it, so technically, I claim that I didn't swim! Amazingly, my pride and a slightly bruised thumb were the only injuries sustained and so I was able to continue paddling.
The rapids after "See Thru" were somewhat easier and so passed without incident. We were off the water at 5:30 and on our way home by 6:30.
Well, Mark must have had a pretty good time, because he asked if I wanted to do it again the next weekend! Although I'd decided I didn't like the idea of all that driving for an afternoon's paddling, I was keen to do it better. So off we went again - this time getting up earlier and away by 7:00am. Once again, Paul provided the guidance: Paul - "Do you remember what to do here?", me - "No", Paul (sighs) "OK, catch that eddy ...". And this time, partly due to an even lower water level and partly due to me not being so stupid, "See Thru" didn't get the upper-hand!
We got off the river around 4ish, and so should have been able to head home much earlier than the previous weekends trip. Unfortunately we found out that a tourist-bus had run off the road down to the get-out at River Valley lodge, and so we couldn't leave. Since we didn't know how long it was going to take to clear, Bill Thompson set off on a bike to to fetch the car from the get-in. The ride took him an hour or so, and by the time he had driven the car back, the bus was clear so we were able to load up and head home!
Duncan.