T canyon, Toaroha river,West coast, NZ

Toaroha canyon was first kayaked in 2011 and quickly gained reputation of one of the best runs on the westcoast of Nz.
Since the days are sort of shot in June in Nz, we started our walk in early. We left my van quarter past eight in the morning and started long and demanding ascend to the top of the land slip. It took us 2h 5'. After short break 200m exposed descent down the slip and bush bashing through thick bush followed for next hour and half.
In 3,5h we reached the river and all the suffering was forgotten instantly.
T canyon is worth all the respect.
The initial falls (13m) looks iimpressive, however we saved it for next visit.

The very first rapid indicates the character of a river. Steep, technical, narrow windy deep gorge style world class kayaking. According to the only guy in the team who paddled T canyon before, Tom Botterill, we had perfect medium flow. (Hokitika under the gorge was on 100m3/s)
The special charm to f T canyon is more than a dozen mandatory rapids which you need to paddle since the portage doesn't exist.
First 3 rapids are that kind of. The following rapid is possible to portage on river left bank. The fact I liked most is constantly clean and beautiful rapids- no manky rapids at all! Somewhere in the middle of the canyon you get to only mandatory portage (or maybe no one was crazy enough to paddle it yet?!). After balancy seal launch from left bank a few cool rapids follow before the last 3 mandatory rapids, which get proportionally bigger - 3, then 5 and the great finale -8m drop which gloriously finishes the most intimidating canyon I paddled in NZ. Since it takes less than 5 minutes to walk back up, I did it twice, took different line on the top and boofed it like a boss. Yes, that was perfect day in the office!

 First rapid of T canyon run

 Solid stroke was needed to boof the first hole, then the fun was just about to start

Rapid #3: tight 2-m boof into tight gorge, pure fun!

Intimidating 5-m drop into boily burly pool!

The recirculating boils were close to 10m away from drop...

.... And, to paddle out of all aerated boils was harder than looks on first sight!

P.s. those are the only pics we have since the phone ran out of battery due to pretty cold day!
Photo credit goes completely to Tom Botterill, many thanks again for pics and showing us the lines!

Bullerfest 28.2.-1.3.2014

Not really fresh piece of news but still. A week after Citroen extreme race there was the last boater x which counted for NZ extreme kayak series. Bullerfest, traditional weekend lasting event which envives the township of Murchinson at least once a year. The competition was even tougher since a few strong north island guys appeared in Murchinson. Schedule for Friday was boater X, for Saturday slalom race (and rafting x) and Sunday SUP race following the cardboard race. http://www.bullerfestival.nz

Boater X was repeating the success a week after achieving second place again. This time I let Brad Lauder to beat me. 😉
It's interesting to note the start ramp lasted only for 10' after crashing. The rest of heats were executed from wet start,facing stream,again 4 kayakers at a time.
Second worth-mentioning occasion happened in the big final. Bradly Lauder, Joe Morley, Karl Whitehead and myself started explosively, BL leading the entry to the rapid,followed by Karl and then me. Due to unpredictable nature of kayak x races I was pushing hard till the finish line. It paid off a few metres before the finish line when I managed to overtake Karl, taking the right, tighter line between the rocks.
After the race we paddled the lower section of Matakitaki to SH bridge. The level was really low and not huge fun,however the potential when river is high exists.
In the evening there was a great party in the only downtown hotel. It was a good one. A kayaking video from US trip was shown by local guys before the DJ arrived.
Saturday was a slalom day. Venue: O'Sullivan rapid on Buller river.
The main goal was achieved so there was no stress about slalom event. I prearranged to borrow a kayak slalom boat (thanks again Robin for the boat,paddle,life west and spraydeck) a week before and only day before when it came to canoe. Ageing is a terrible fact to face so the guy who provided the C1 forgive me for not mentioning your name in that post. Was keeping fingers crossed you sold the boat asap tho. ☺
It was a lot of fun to sit in slalom again after a long time. Canoeing the course in first run wasn't clean as I aim for, I got 56 penalty seconds, what was improved in second run. In the end that was enough for second place in C1 and, without any penalties in both runs the time under 90" suffised to win K1 event strongly for more than 7".
No need to mention the party can be described in superlatives. The guy,playing several instruments did his job excellent. And beer was cheap as well. 😁
On Sunday the racing momentum was gone and SUP race was a relaxed one., testing a few different types of boards and having fun. OK, OK -8th place was proportional to level of energy and motivation after industrious weekend.
In the afternoon there was a ceremony for all the events plus overall results of NZ extreme series. Joe Morley won, closely following  by the difference of only 3 points by some Slovenian guy with funny name I never heard of - Matic Terčelj; and third was Karl Whitehead.
Honestly I never hoped to get so high in overall ranking since the competition was sort of strong. Multiple Sickline champion Sam Sutton, his younger brother Jamie, current champ Joe Morley, winner of WWGP Gerd Serasolses, Brendan Bayly, John Snook, Mike Dawson are amazing kayakers I had honour to paddle with and compete against. Link: http://nzextremewhitewater.com/2014/03/07/nz-extreme-race-series-finale-bullerfest-boater-x/

Last but not least, huge thanks to: PBS, d.d. http://www.pbs.si

Planet zdravja http://www.planetzdravja.com

Alpin Action  http://www.alpinaction.it

and Obey paddles http://www.obeydesigns.com

for all the support. Kayaking is much easier with a few extra Euros on your bank account, organic food supplements, solid shoes, robust dry suit and a quality paddle.

Next post will be about kayaking on West coast of NZ - a kayakers' paradise!
Safe lines until then.

.Matic

Photo credit:
Gordon Rayner.

Citroen extreme race

Kaituna time trial and Wairoa extreme race

After flying back to Rotorua last Monday (3.2.) from Christchurch for a week I started training again for the first two races of NZ EXTREME WHITEWATER ASSN (NZEWW) series.
Last weekend was a busy one.On Saturday there was time trial on Kaituna from gates to bottom hole. The water level was extremely low (low pressure 200s) thus the times have not been record-breaking ones. First class was creek boat race, followed by long boat one - and in the end team race in a format of relay as well.
There were two runs in creekers and faster one counted. I managed to improve performance from the first run so the time of second one 7:32:03 put me in a solid 9th place out of more than 35 competitors.

The long boat race was a chapter on its own. Never kayaking topoduo before on Kaituna caused a few minor problems on the course (flipping on rapid called boiling pot) put me on 4th place in the end. I will try to find someone who took a pic from that epic run. Would be a good memory. :)

Team race with mass startwas an unexpected success. Barely knowing each other before calling our team Euro trash (Ladislav Švarc CZE and Mathias Friedl AUT) we managed to win the 3rd place in a strong competition of more than 10 teams. Well-worth mentioning is a fact I nearly lost the "relay foam" and since there was no time to put it back between the lifewest and bib - I just put it in the mouth in order not to loose any time. Obviously the decision was a right one!

On Sunday there was Wairoa extreme race - first ime trial from seal launch down to just above waterfall rapid. Rankings from the time trial seeded paddlers and put them into a Tennis Draw for the head to head races. First round decided main round or plate round. Head to Head comp was held on waterfall and rollercoaster rapids. 
Loosing some precious time on time trial put me in a pair with Mathias Friedl from Austria. Yes, my team member from Saturdays teams race! After faster start I was not able to touch the banner first since I paddled to the last eddy too low, so even more than 10m of advantage was not enough to beat him - paddling upstream is time consuming - next time I should checked the location of finnish accurately. Anyways, the second round I managed to win even though the start wasnt the best one but I got the last eddy high enough to touch finnish first. The third round I paddled with Tom who is my mate from Okere falls and also the one who was kind enough to pick me up on the airport in Rotorua when I returned. The start fight was cruel and I was pushed too close to the rock on the rapid "Waterfall" - I flipped and spend a few seconds exploring the cave under the rapid. Finally I pushed myself away from the rock, enabling to roll. However I lost too much time to catch him. I paddled hard to the finnish banner anyways and congratulate him on success. He later won a plate round boater x of 4 paddlers as well.
 

All in all, the weekend was a great success, not only because of great racing but also because of meeting friends and having a good time on the river.

you can chack two videos from Wairoa here:

The next race follows in 2 weeks time - Citroen race in Queenstown on river Kawerau.

Just the next day, on Monday (10.2.) morning I had my flight back to CHC, where my faithful van was patienty waiting for me. Since I destroyed front left tire in the last month of travelling allround NZ (no rubber but fabrics on the outer side) I am writing that post still in Chc, heading to Hokitika in the afternoon after sorting tires out.

pura vida!

.M

Picking cherries in Cromwell 20.1.-2.2.2014

First of all appologies for all the grammar mistakes me And autocorrect are making.

Because I was running out of money and there are some expenses coming (flight to Rotorua, heli kayaking trips on West coast in Feb) I decided to find myself a job. Not (yet) successfully within the pharmaceutical field (visited more than 10 pharmacies and no position was available. Not even filling the shelfs. However, I might starting offering systematic medication reviews in elderly Parks. I was rejected in Cromwell but that won't stop me.Need to search a bit how's that field developed down here.
So, now I'm a picker. I never worked in an orchard before and since I adore cherries it was challenging to start a job, paid per effect-if you exceed min standard,which is 1,8-2,3 buckets/h. A bucket carries 10L or cca 5 kg of delicious fruits. In first two days I picked less than the minimal wage- so I was paid $13,9/h. Then I changed my picking partner & situation improved. On best day I earned more than 250. Kam Chuan, a really friendly Malesian mate was then an excellent company for next 10 days. We supported each other when the other didn't catch the fast picking rythm and took care of providing relaxed athmosphere. Gracias to Alan and Maxi from Argentina for some latino music as well. We have been lucky to get an amazing supervisor Felipe, and quality control checker Rosario - both from Chile.
I stayed on the lake bank close to old Cromwell
, next to boat ramp nad close to public toilet-a must every morning. A few days I was alone there,then 3vans of French Guys joined me,and in the end 2 cars of Czech guys. Strašni Pšemki Jakub, Jaroslav, Honza nad Daniel made a difference nad brought some Slavic joyfullness. And heaps of beer. 😁 So our freedom camping got some social life. Shower was available in the lake, still cold but Better than none.
An event worth mentioning was celebration of Chinese new year-on 1.2.2014 they started a year of horse. And close to our camp gathered at least 25Chinese from China,Hong Kong,Thailand, Maleysia... we tried spicy thai soup and hang out until it was a bedtime around 22.30. Needless to say the night was too short since we needed to wake up a bit past 5. We started working at 6am respectively.
Two weeks passed way to fast And it was time to say goodbye. On Monday, the 3.2. In the morning I had a flight back to Rotorua for first two races in 2014 NZ extreme series - Kaituna time trial 8.2. And Wairoa extreme race 9.2..

Cherry Picking pics will follow slon,as the report from that weekend's races.
Cheers!
.M