Murchison

My kayaking adventures have begun! I drove from Christchurch to Murchison (home to the NZ Kayak School) on Saturday. I arrived just in time to attend the birthday party for Mick Hopkinson, director of the NZ Kayak School. The potluck was a veritable who's who of the NZ kayaking community, and the next day we all did a group paddle on the Middle Matakitaki (Class 2+). Counting all of the kayakers and rafters (one raft for the kids), there were 84 people in all. Here's a shot of some of the folks at the put in:

It was quite a scene. It was fun to paddle with all levels and all sorts of paddlers. It was a great introduction to the NZ paddling community. I was a bit distracted, however, because I was paddling a boat that was WAY too big for me, so I wasn't able to really explore the nooks and crannies, i.e. play on some waves and/or practice with eddies and ferrying, as I would have liked, but it was a good intro to some of the people who paddle around here.

Today I paddled the Lower Matakitaki (Class 3+) with Shannon (employee of the New Zealand Kayak School). Here's the put-in for that run:

Perfect amount of flatwater at the put in for a warm up, but there wasn't much flatwater after that. I stayed upright and on-line for the most part, but it was quite different than most of the paddling I've done. This stretch had continuous and technical boulder fields that created different hydralics than I'm used to paddling. It was a great challenge and I look forward to getting more practice on it. I was paddling a boat that fit quite a bit better than the one I paddled yesterday, so it felt really good to eddy hop my way down this stretch.