Kayak - Tech week

Tech Adventure Boating week (TPP)


Date: 24/09/2012 - 28/09/2012
Location: Arnold River, Arahura River Cesspool Gorge, Totara river, Kakapotahi river and Lake Brunner
Weather: Heavy rain on Tuesday night and some of Wednesday otherwise fine.
Group: Phil Palzer, Greg Lee, Jacob Scharma, Rata Lovell-Smith, Daniel Morgan, Tui Krall, Ben Searle, Chris Harvey and Myself as students and Zak Shaw, Keith Riley, Dave Ritchie and Phil Johnston where our tutors.
Grade: 2/4/3/4/2
Duration: 5 days
Flow: Low we were on Low level flood runs like the Totara and Kakapotahi after the rain
Incidents: Dan injured his back on the first day on the Arnold and was out for the next three days. One swim from Ben on the Totara.

A Perfect week to finish off our time at TPP. We have been looking forward to this for the whole year and it did not disappoint. day one Rata, Phil, Greg and I went over our rescues on a Kayak 1 level will Phil Johnston to see how we stacked up. it was clear that we still needed a lot of work on the them to be up to the standard. Day two we went down to Hokitika and based ourselves at the Ruatapu Kayak School (AKA Keiths house). We spent the day on the Arahura walking to the half way point of Cesspool Gorge. From there we abseiled down with all our gear and put on at the end of the first rapid. paddling out we worked on our timing of strokes and boofing hitting as many drops as we could on the way down. after a night of rain we got up and headed off the the Totara River. I had only been there once at a very low flow before and it was quite different much pushier and bigger very sweet day on the river. day four we put on the lower Kakapotahi Jacob and Tui ran the main drop for the first time they both had good lines. today we were with Dave and he went over rescues and role modeling good technique throughout the day. on Friday we were back in Greymouth and spent the morning at lake Brunner completing our all in rescue and a few teaching progressions. the afternoon was all about rescue from assisted ferry glides to unconscious swimmers to throw bagging. along with just having a paddle around. A great way to spend the last day off our TPP time.