{"id":3402,"date":"2019-04-25T20:20:23","date_gmt":"2019-04-25T08:20:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/deltaprime.net.nz\/whitewater\/?p=3402"},"modified":"2019-05-03T23:21:14","modified_gmt":"2019-05-03T11:21:14","slug":"25th-april-2019-hurunui-river","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/deltaprime.net.nz\/whitewater\/?p=3402","title":{"rendered":"25th April 2019: Hurunui River"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Date:<\/strong>   25\/04\/19
River:<\/strong>    Hurunui River, North Canterbury, NZ
River Conditions:<\/strong>  26 Cumecs at Mandamus. Grade 2 \u2013 3, water swift & clear.
Weather Conditions:<\/strong> Sunny but cool with nor westerly winds.
Number on Trip:  <\/strong>6 paddlers.
Time on River:  <\/strong>4.5 hours
Comments:  <\/strong>I\u2019d been looking forward to getting out in the kayak again and so when ANZAC day dawned, bright and clear, it was off to The Peg to meet up with a group of keen paddlers for a run down the Hurunui. We decided to run from the fish farm down and as the group had a number of less experienced, we would get out at Seawards and not run Maori Gully. We drove up to Seawards and got changed, before carrying on to the Jollie Brook put in to catch up with Sylvie, who had traveled from the West Coast to have a paddle. To leave a shuttle vehicle at the take out, we all crammed in to the remaining two vehicles, packing the back of AJ\u2019s van with people and boats. We stopped off at Devil\u2019s Fang Falls to check out the lines, it looked fairly toothy and most decided they wouldn\u2019t run it. While at Jollie Brook, we met a group of pig hunters with their dogs. The dogs got to check out the back of AJ\u2019s van to check out all his doggy smells.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Walking down to the put in.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

We then all crammed back into the van and drove up to Sisters Stream. The walk in to the top gorge is about 1 kilometre and I could definitely feel the additional weight of the Salto as I carried it up the hill, once there though, I switched to towing it behind me down to the river. It was a beautiful, sunny day and the mountains and river looked lovely in their autumn colours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A beautiful day, great scenery and a river to paddle.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Looking up stream & enjoying the autumn colours.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The top gorge was enjoyable with its rapids and drops, and the run down to Jollie Brook, with its many boulder gardens was lots of fun, catching eddies and surfing waves. By the time we got down to Jollie Brook, I was feeling a little tired but the river had plenty more to offer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Enjoying a calm spot in the top gorge.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Down to South Branch was plenty of fun too and is probably my favourite grade 2 section on the Hurunui, with its gorges, rapids and boulder gardens. The Salto handled it all very nicely, without sacrificing the fun of surfing and playing around (something that had worried me about getting a creek boat).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Silvie runs a rapid.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Sylvie has a surf.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

We had a brief stop at the South Branch confluence for a snack before carrying on. More rapids and more fun, before we neared Devils Fang Falls above Dozy Stream. We had a brief discussion about what everyone wanted to do and most decided to portage, either on the left hand side or down the road on the right. I decided to run it and waited until those portaging had got in to position. I decided to take the right hand line, which meant punching through a couple of holes before the main drop and then avoiding the fang at the bottom of the drop. The first bit went smoothly, but the hole above the drop was deep and I apparently disappeared from view, stopping briefly at the bottom of the hole before punching through and carrying on down the tongue and past the fang without any drama.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Hugh runs a rapid in his pack raft.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The others got back in their boats and carried on down the river. We had a good play around at the play spot below Dozy Stream and some great surfs were had. Krysia got into a little bit of trouble after tipping over on the wave. She got swept into the eddy by the base of the bluff and this made rolling difficult and she ended up in the water. Fortunately she kept all her gear with her and was able to climb out, empty out her boat before getting back on the water and cutting back across the river. While she was doing this, Silvie also got caught in the small eddy by the bluff and had a few nervous moments before escaping its clutches.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Krysia enjoying the play wave<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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AJ gets some air.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The trip down to Seawards was pretty quick, with the wind getting up and blowing Hugh in his pack raft before us. It was also quite a long trip and I was certainly feeling quite fatigued by the time we reached Seawards. No one was keen to do Maori Gully, as we were lacking time and experience (plus I didn\u2019t really want to carry the Salto up from the Maori Gully take out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Enjoying the scenery on a beautiful autumn day.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

We got changed and the shuttle was run. It definitely got a bit chilly when the sun disappeared behind the mountains and we were glad when the vehicles arrived back and we were able to head back to town, arriving back after dark.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Date:   25\/04\/19River:    Hurunui River, North Canterbury, NZRiver Conditions:  26 Cumecs at Mandamus. Grade 2 \u2013 3, water swift & clear.Weather Conditions: Sunny but cool with nor westerly winds.Number on Trip:  6 paddlers.Time on River:  4.5 hours Comments:  I\u2019d been looking forward to getting out in the kayak again and so when ANZAC day dawned, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":204,"featured_media":3431,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3402","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-kayaking","category-river"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/deltaprime.net.nz\/whitewater\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3402","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/deltaprime.net.nz\/whitewater\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/deltaprime.net.nz\/whitewater\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deltaprime.net.nz\/whitewater\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/204"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deltaprime.net.nz\/whitewater\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3402"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/deltaprime.net.nz\/whitewater\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3402\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3440,"href":"https:\/\/deltaprime.net.nz\/whitewater\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3402\/revisions\/3440"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deltaprime.net.nz\/whitewater\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3431"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/deltaprime.net.nz\/whitewater\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deltaprime.net.nz\/whitewater\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deltaprime.net.nz\/whitewater\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}