Thursday, September 11, 2008

HOW LOW CAN YOU GO

On rare occasions, being a student has its advantages. Sure sitting in the lounge breathing steam, (because heating costs money) and having to check your account just to get a coffee are not massively inspiring. However, on the upside for us as Rec students is the fact that here at CPIT there is a little known fund, to which every student at the polytech contributes. This fund exists solely to give money to students for extra currcular activities. Consequently, to access this fund all one has to do is apply to the friendly people at CPSA and providing they approve... has everyone figured out where this rambling explanation is going yet? Thats right. West coast on!!!We started off with some bad news, one car had issues with the brakes, and in our car Jamie found a big split in his boat. But we didn't let this stop us at all, Gus traded cars with Soph and Jamie had an attempt at fixing his boat at the trusty dairy factory in Hokitika.Once our problems were sorted we hiked into the Styx for a quicky at low water.This was the first trip down the Styx of many for Sanga as he discovered the joy of more rocks then water and sphincter tightening lines!On Sunday we gave Dando a call and flew into the Arahura for once again low water, this offered less push but tighter lines for the day. But with calm but overcast weather, we were in for a primo day.



West Coast shuttle

the put in

but but on the first drop of the day

the low dent falls


thats y its called dent falls jordy going center on billiards

mmmmmm

jamie rockn billiards

these next shots are me stokn billiards

jordy on cesspool
All in all it was a mean weekend with heaps of sweet lines and only a couple of minor mishaps. Thanks to the CPSA for hooking us up with some funding and Soph for lending the sentrizz for another choice coast trip!

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Mystic Ridge

With the weekend approaching but but, scotty and myself decided to head into the hill in search of what ever we can get our hands on armed with a 7mil 08, 223, and the most famous mystic ridge we new she was going to be a goodie . well on the mystic ridge front anyway , well here some pic enjoy setting off

scotty and me day one


myself day 2


camp day 1


Sunday, August 3, 2008

WHEN THE RAIN COMES

with storms smashing the country side, texts flying back and forth and some one pulling a sicky not naming names, the okuku was all go, on the thus the old girl got up over 200 cfs , with the normal flow being around 3 to 4 cfs we decided to put it off till Friday and it was well worth it. With the river flowing around the 55/60 mark we new we were in for a good day but we had one small problem a shuttle driver hmmm (Hannah " year ill do, year sure ") turns out she wasn't a big game player (wrap it up) any way my good old mate smithy pulled through as we only told him it was an hour shuttle, woops sorry smithy we may have lied lol,
upon arriving we found the okuku at a good flow , as i had dune it the week before so kind of new what to expect but the river was about 15 to 20 cfs at a gess higher . it starts off with some fun class 3 boating until u get to the 1st gorge where the first main rapid awaits. with gus optioning to walk myself Chee and Murphy hit the sucker up the river then continues with some class 3+ wave trains/big holes. things start picking up as you enter the 2nd gorge with some nice long class 4 rapids we enter the first crux raped. hey gus eddy out bro! with gus running it first with out an option and living on a paryer made it down. with some cool rapids to come before the big one ,fun was had .arriving at the hardest raped we jumped out for a look it fair to say shit was big, some massive holes and huge waves Murphy and my self ran that shit after this the river starts to flatten out and we arrive safe and sound.
big ups to smithy for driving thanks bro and thanks for a good day out boys .

ED MURPHY AT "WORK"

LETS PLAY FIND JARED

OOOO THERE HE IS

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Rangitata Gorge

Rangitata gorge

We had Sam, Jared, Ash, Chris, josh and Hayden .We arrived at the get out and explained to the crew the plan, loaded up the wizard six up and headed to the get in.
Here are some picts of the day...... and well done josh for stepping up and styling the pinch. (chur)
Getting on the water
Getting on the water


Josh running No.1 rapid

Hayden Running 'Roosters Tail & Pigs Troff'

Jared Running 'Roosters Tail & Pigs Troff'


Cheers to every one for a mint day on the water.

WEST COAST

Well...It's that time of year again when it snows quite often, heavy frosts are not a rarity, and we decide to go kayaking! The plans were delayed a day because of the closure of Arther's pass but this didn't stop us from having our winter adventures in the mountain valleys behind Hokitika.It all started with Jarred bowling into jamies room Sunday morning, driving through snow and ice, losing a boat off the roof at 110, and some very to quality white water to be kayaked with not a moment to spare.

On Sunday we started walking at quite a fast pace into the Styx at 3 for an hour to get the trip started. With a good flow we continued to move just as fast down the river to get to the car with not a second of light to spare.With not much else running we decided to check out a new run, gave Dando a call, and before we knew it (or the sun knew it) we were waiting on a frosty morning for the humm of the helicopter.

For a not so cheap fare we were picked up by Dando, flown as high as we could get to the bottom of Toaroha canyon, dropped of with our kayaks going even higher to a small beach somewhere, in search of the biggest drop thus far in Jarred's kayaking career.After an hour of exploration we found what we were looking for. A sweet 25footer that flowed out of the bottom of the canyon. After a few descents of this and a swim we were off down the river in search of that illusive winter sunshine.

The river was awesome with some cool pool drop moves and a couple of fun boulder gardens to boot.The next day it was time for a sleep in to see if it would be any warmer if we let that sun have a crack at melting some of that frost... the only problem was the sun doesn't really penetrate very deep into the steep valleys of the west coast, especially not the Styx valley.After a later than usual start we hiked on in to the Styx, a little higher this time, unfortunately with less water. It really is true, the higher you go the steeper it gets. With this in mind we started as high as we could force ourselves to walk giving us awesome, continuous, steep, creeking which was just what we want! With Jarred giving me some inside local info we traveled down some of the most fun white water I have ever done back to the car just in time to catch the sunset. Choice!

BY JAMIE GARROD

Thursday, June 5, 2008


Queens birthday mission
After a bit of humming and haa-ing, Jarrod, Dave(our American friend), Ben and Butters decided there could be no better way to spend the Queens 'b' day than boating. We headed over to the coast with the intentions of running the styx on the Sunday and a fly in on the Monday. However we ended up doing two missions on the styx.....Dando's chopper got driven into by a house bus at full noise. Dam tourists!!!!

Butbut lining up the grind



Jared busting the grind


Anyway we managed to walk into the styx (with a large amount of moaning from Butters) to start with. Then on the second day it was Jared turn to moan due to the dent in the front of the magnum. Jug of hot water bro?...The water was low but the trip was still sweet.


Jared dreaming of Cali

Sunday, April 13, 2008

ARGENTINA TRIP

PART TIME
RUGBY CLUB POOLS

BUMS : )



THE WAY THE POOR GET AROUND




THE CAR PARK









THE VIEW FROM MY ROOM
FIRST NIGHT OUT
VIEW FROM MY ROOM AT NIGHT
LET THE GAMES BEGIN





Hey as some off yours, mite no I have just been to Argentina with high school boy's rugby club so here a bit run down
we arrive at chch airport at 8 am cheek in and so forth and jump on our connect flight to Auckland where we were meant to have an 3 hour stop over be we soon learn that
Argentina air lines aren't the best people to deal with so as it turned out we spent and extra 3 hours in Auckland airport as the plain pulls up you see all the boys looking at each other and thinking oooo F%^k the old girl need a paint ill tell yar that. The inside was not much better, after 11 hours on a cramped plane with no TV for some of us we final arrived in arge. Getting through customs was a piece of piss u just showed them your passport and that was it no m.a.f to deal with we did not even get our bags cheeked. As we steeped out the airport, the heat hit you straight away. driving from the airport to our hotel in B.A it was a real eye opener you drive passed really poor place witch look like a war zone, then into the city centre were its just full on motor bikes nipping past you cars all over the show. You could put hand out the window and touch the truck next to you, they do not tend to stick to there lanes very well.
our hotel just happened to be rite in the hart of it all, upon arriving we set out to cheek out the city centre out, holey shit is the first thing that comes into your mind there are so many people pushing passed each other, homeless people savaging in the bin for rubbish to recycle and the most pain in the ass people ever trying to give you leaflets to make you go into there shops. Errrrrrrrrrrr o and I cannot for get the people trying to sell you cocaine lol. As it being our first night in arge we went out for a few, the nightlife does not start till around 2/3 am and goes through until 9/10 so threes time for a wee kip before heading out. With a 9 hour, bus ride down to Bahia Blanca you made a night off it as you could sleep the whole way down and luckily enough the bus just happened to be kited out with lazy boy like seats.
we met our host bros, as they like to call them and started to settle in to that Argentinean way of life witch is kind of hard ill tell you that. so the week that that was to follower kind of went like this, Saturday played to games of rugby, Sunday play 2 games and then hit the piss, you can by a 900ml bottle for $4 no bucks so $20 nz bucks is not a bad nyt out on the town and thats the taxi home as well. the next 2 days are rest days before plying our next game on the wed then the flowing games on fri and sat then a big night out on sat and a bus ride back to B.A at 7am so you just pack your bags the night before hand and tell your host bro to meet you at the bus with your bags. We then travelled to b.a where we spent three big nights before flying home. Enjoy some pics