Date: 24/01/15
River: Clarence River, North Canterbury, NZ
River Conditions: 2.6 Cumecs at Jollies (NIWA). Grade 2+(3), water clear.
Weather Conditions: Sunny & warm, with light NE winds, winds strengthening in the afternoon.
Number on Trip: 4 rafts, 4 guides & 10 clients.
Time on River: 8.5 hours.
Distance covered: 39km (71km travelled in total)
Altitude dropped: 103m (226m dropped in total)
Comments: We rose early, had breakfast and were on the river by 8:30am with Gus as our guide for the day. The highlights of the day were a particularly dramatic gorge and a large white, limestone hill. Gus would often take cooling dips by dropping off the back of the raft, Lauri and I joined him at one stage as it was pretty hot (even though both of us had removed our over-trousers and additional clothing but I kept my dry jacket on because I never really get that warm).
Here be geology.
One of the cool things about this trip is that the river cuts through a wide variety of geological formations and side streams also bring in an interesting selction of rocks. Where we stopped for lunch, there were some nice basalt boulders on the bank and we had a nice swim to cool off before getting back on the river.
Our camp site at Squirrel.
We camped at Squirrel (the site was a little hidden so it was named by the guides as Secret Squirrel hence Squirrel) near Quail Flat. We visited to old cob cottage homestead before a dinner of salmon steaks (and sausages for me).
Cob cottage at Quail Flat.
After dinner we went down to the river, where the guides were feeding the salmon heads to a number of large eels that lived there.
Salmon head & eels at Quail Flat.
Sam & Gus did a spot of impromptu possum hunting with a large machete but only managed to bag a hedgehog. Lauri got a better nights sleep as we properly inflated her mattress and made sure it didn’t down in the night. I slept under the fly sheet again and was up at 3am re-inflating my air mattress but didn’t really mind as the sky was clear and the stars looked amazing.