The Last Call

Today one of New Zealand’s most famous drops has gone and I can’t see it coming back any time soon. The Arahura has changed somewhat since the release of Graham Charles’ White Water Guide. The 2008 flood took out what is known as Dent Fall’s, causing the huge rock on the left hand side to fall into the main drop. Curtain Call was one of New Zealand’s most recognised drops.

I could almost guarantee that everyone who has been into the Arahura would have a picture tucked away somewhere of themselves running this wee gem. The huge rock on river right, that formed the drop, has fallen in and formed a funky wee curler thingy. There have also been other changes to another three or four rapids, most of which are for the better, like with dent falls.

I am not too sure if anyone has run it since the 2008 floods, but it now goes. However, you need a medium to high flow and it is still a stout drop with sieves on both sides of you. It starts off with a small boof on the centre left, after this you have a wee bit of time to gather your thoughts before entering the crux of the move.

A five foot boof pushes towards the perfectly situated sieve on river left. You need to run this hard right with a big boof, upon landing avoid the rock and head back to the centre right then off the main falls.I’m unsure whether the changes to the river are from the recent earthquake, the winter floods, or a combination of the both. However, because of the changes, you may want to pop your head around the corner before bombing into anything.



Here is a picture of Keith riley running air mail on the upper kakapotahi the day before

A Long Time Over Due

So I am back in action after a 3 month stint in California, not having a laptop with me made it quite hard to update the old blog so I left that up to the other boys which was done very well, chur to that. California was an experience words cannot explain with warm weather cheap beers and good looking women o and the kayaking was world class to. I am not going to try and tell you how good it was it’s up to you to go there and experience it for yourself Ill chuck up some pictures of the good times that was California.

In my return I haven’t been up to much as people would know in Cali I had an addiction to “ candy” ( pain killers) for my should that was playing up from the pasted rugby session. At the time I thought it was just muscle injury so when I got back I decided to go get it cheeked out. After getting X amounts on injections to pump my shoulder full of roids I finally went for an x-ray and low and behold there it was a broken collar bone and also a small dislocation. Bugger! So after 6 months with it broken and 3 of those months paddling nonstop in Cali I thought what the hell what’s another week worth. So Trent Garnham Andy England and myself headed to the far south of the West Coast to check out what the Makawhio and the Moeraki had to offer.

The Makawhio is situated 30mins South of Fox and Moeraki about an hour from Fox . First on the list was the Moeraki with the boats strapped to our back you start walking through amazing beach forest, putting in off the side of the Haast-Paringa Cattle Track, directly underneath the swing bridge, 400m before you get to Blue River (Blowfly) Hut was the plan. But we ended up walking another 45min up the valley to find even more fantastic white water.From where we put on you could see even more white water upstream but as time was against us. From here it starts off with some read and run class four right down to the swing bridge, here on is where the action starts with some steep 4+ 5 white water some previous teams had described the run as followed …”

“We then had a few km's of steep, busy, grade 4, with 3 rapids that we had to portage, 2 of which will likely not be run, least defiantly not by me for sure on that one. They sieve out to hell and back, the third portage could be run, a 4m drop, if we had a bit more water through the river, the rest is beautiful boulder gardens, lots of tight lines and good fun boating, down to a flat water paddle past a river wide choke of trees for half a km, before one last rapid and the take out on the side of the State Highway 6, by Boulder Creek, a couple of km before the river hits Lake Moeraki”.

From this description the river seemed to have changed as all good rivers on the coast do, there were few trees but still lots of sieves and lots of gradient. I managed to run everything but one sieved out heap of crap rapid as some of the portages looked harder and the rapid as Andy and Trent shins found out. All and all the Moeraki river is a must do if you are coming up from down south or you’re a just keen to for a bit of a mish it is well worth the effort and u will not be let down. From here we head back to Fox for a well-deserved beer and some fish n chips.bro !.

The Makawhio is a river that has only seen to other team in there before us according to James Scott. We flew into just below the main gorge were after dropping the boats we few up to check it out from the air. It looked very steep and that’s saying something if it looks seep from the air. Most of it looked like it doesn’t go as yes u guessed it, it flows into sieves but there is a bit here and there that douse run and might be worth a look. The Makawhio river isn’t the hardest river in the world with it starting off with quite a bit of class four and then heaps of class three. There is enough to keep you entertained. But what makes this river so cool is that you can only get down this valley this by kayak, there is no tracks and no sign of people what so ever .This landscape will is mine blowing and it will keep you

Summer loving happend so fast.....

Well the Coast has had it all this summer from the 3 biggest floods that its seen in awhile to it beeing as dry as a nuns c#%t. These flows have offered many different runs from big water Arahura and RGC to your stock standed coast runs.

For me January was a month of boating with no job to tie me down many styx trips and other walking were ticked off and off course the odd fly in. February has been a bit of a low as I have done my shoulder in "shagged the A.C" but nothing the odd roid injuction won"t fix. I have also have landed my self a job at Westland high school teaching year 12 and 13 kids to kayak so time is at at a loss but hay i am still kayaking and getting payed for it what more could you want.

check some shots out of whats been happing in this neck of the woods I think most of them are taken by Barny Young

Cheeking out R.G.C but she was a bit low to run

Barny Young climbing up the left hand side just shows

how steep this bad boy is.

Dlyan Thompson on postmans on the upper kakas

Keith Riley on the slide drop upper kakas

Myself getting it done

Keith Riley and Dylan Thopson fighting it

out on the upper kakas

Barny Young droping air mail

JJ shepherd doing what he does best

Cess pit at full tit

Don't swim on a BIG Arahura, Brandon gets it wrong

and yes that is a SLR and yes it is F$%ked.

This the only shot we got for the day shit was moving way to fast

Ben Bralow "nose up" was the call for the day

Myself on the Witcombe river

Eddie Murphy hitting a sweet boof

This was one of the 2 best boofs of the day. Come down

around the bend hit the kicker and set sail.

Zac shaw and Jordy Searle on the ever changing

landslide rapid.

B-rain showing how not to do it


I love this shot. Shannon Mast geting his boof on