After too much time in the office lately it was time to escape up north for a fun weekend on the water (and an excuse for me to catch up with my family). Duncan & Eaon came too which made it a combined VUCC/HVCC trip.
We camped Friday night near Turangi below the power station. It would have been a nice camping spot except for being beaten in the face by the tent all night (it was a bit windy). I prefer camping in my van (it doesn't usually sway in the wind much!).
We had a leisurely start and arrived in Rotorua about mid-morning. Kei and Kanji (from Turangi) met us at the Sunspots kayak shop. The Kaituna was running low so on advice from the folks at Sunspots we decided save our strength for the Wairoa the next day and just paddled the bottom part of the Kaituna from the waterfall down. The flow was 200 on the gates which was much less intimidating than the 1100 flow at Christmas time when I had a bit of a scare above Trout falls. However the waterfall can be a bit dangerous at low flows, and we'd heard several tales of good kayakers hitting the wall on the way down & getting trashed at the bottom.
Although it was short I found the bottom section quite fun, and I recommend it to anyone not ready to do the whole run. It was grade 3 (with a grade 4+ put-in carrying the kayak down the stairs & ladder to the pool below the falls) and at low flow was a series of small committing drops with pools after. I managed to go over at the bottom of one of the drops and punched a rock before I had time to roll up (I think the rock came off best). A few scratches, no big drama. We played for a while in the hole at the bottom (it was not as scary as last time I was there).
That afternoon Kei and Kanji returned to Turangi and Eaon and Duncan went off to try out the luge while I caught up with family in Rotorua. Sunday morning we drove through to the Wairoa to catch the last release of the summer. I decided I wasn't quite ready for the hard stuff, so I volunteered to be shuttle bunny and just do the bottom section. When we arrived at McLaren Falls it was a bit like a scout jamboree with heaps of kayakers, rafts and tourists all there for the release. Eaon did a scary seal launch off the concrete pillar (which I photographed for him). After leaving the car at the takeout I walked up the river with my kayak to the playwave at the bottom of the upper section. The wave was really cool - not as big and intimidating as FullJames and not too hard to stay on once I caught it. There were quite a few other people (mostly Aucklanders) playing on the wave.
The boys arrived full of adrenaline from the upper rapids. They'd had a good run although I think Eaon got a bit of a spanking on one of the rapids. After failing to catch the wave 4 times in a row I decided to flag it and we headed on down. The next few rapids were not hard and Duncan & Eaon knew the lines well. Some way down there was a short steep rapid with a play-whirlpool partway down. Duncan went in first then Eaon rafted up next to him. I watched them going round and round for a while before I got up the courage to join them. It was a very weird experience and I wasn't sure I liked it so after a few minutes I got out of there. Eaon didn't time it quite right and had to roll getting out.
All too soon we arrived at the bottom waterfall. On Eaon's instruction I went left to miss the rock in the centre of the river. Unfortunately I went a bit too left and had to do a quick stroke to miss a rock on the lip. I then completely failed to boof and went off the waterfall kind of sideways. I went over at the bottom and got a bit trashed in the falls. I hung in there and put my paddle down deep to catch the green (evidently my kayak was doing all sorts of aerobatics - I didn't appreciate this at the time). This worked and I flushed out and rolled up (with my deck partly off). Duncan did the waterfall fine then had a bit of an experience afterwards when doing rock splats against the wall on river left below the falls. It seems that this spot is a bit sticky (probably why its good for rock splats) as he discovered when he went over - and almost had his first swim in several years. At the last moment he managed to grab someone's boat & pull himself up.
We returned to Rotorua for dinner at my sister's house then spent several hours soaking in the hot pools at the secret spot. We camped that night at FullJames. Monday morning there was no water early so we had a leisurely breakfast and put in at the wave in time to catch about half an hour of decent flow before it dropped again. It was a good flow to catch the wave but a bit hard to stay on and do tricks (which didn't bother me since I can't do tricks anyways). We played in the hole below the wave and practiced throwbagging for a while after the river dropped. We then had a quick drive back to Wellington to get Eaon to his Monday night Karate class. Thanks guys for an excellent trip.
Lisa L-J