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.