Rain finally arrived in its true fashion for the West Coast this last week.
Ben a.k.a "action jackson" and myself took the oportuntity to make the most of a big flow, completing a full source to sea of the Buller river 177km, in ten and a half hours.
We pushed off from Lake Rotoiti near the settlement of St Arnaud, high in the Nelson Lakes National Park at 7.20 am. With heavy fog restricting our vision downstream this made the inital 10km of class three whitewater more challenging.
We had waited patiently for the river to swell to its highest level of the summer before attepting to break the fastest source to sea time. The trip was originally set by two reputable folk of the whitewater community in 15hrs, whilst our descent was equally about the scenery and quality of huge volume whitewater we also had our minds set on smashing the previous time and setting a new standard!
Ariki Falls proved to the crux of the journey, the 500m length of class four turbulent water demanded focused eyes, our intended lines were made (just). Any "out of boat" experience would have had serious consequences.
We pushed throught the final 80km riding the backside of the flooded bubble. Whilst this last leg was mostly class one we still managed to travel at a rate of 15 km per hour and arrived on the coast 20 minutes before dark to huge surf and one last challenge to finish the trip.
Ben boldly dropped in on a huge set and took a beating but managed to gain control and land ashore, I attempted to time my line in a make it clean, it was not to be.
The nose of my kayak plunged into the bottom of a huge wave and soon I felt myself flying over the falls headed for punishment! I rolled somehow still in my kayak and dragged my tired body ashore.
Total time - 10. 24 min
Length - (we think 177km)
Flow 2143 cumecs peak flow at sea gauge
The time to beat has been set!
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