"Almost golden"

Image above - Golden Bay at sunrise. Beautiful to wake up to, not good for kayaking.
NZ's ever reliable weather forecasters spread the warning. "80mm of rain to fall west of the Takaka hill" Thats what Golden Bay needs in order for it to transform from a sunny white sand paradise into a steep creek rain induced kayaking meca.
In the Murchison pub our plan was confirmed and we headed north after work the following day.
We knew we would arrive late on the banks of our target the Parapara river so I packed a spotlight. At 10pm the flow looked good at the takeout but the rain had stopped. We remained hopeful that it would rain throughout the night.
Nine years previous I'd spent an unplanned night spooning two of my good friends, freezing within the Parapara gorge. Fatal mistake - we picked the shortest day of the year to do it.
It got dark at 5pm so we made a shelter out of ferns, kayaks and lifejackets.
Some nights just go forever....
Keen to set the record straight on round two we got an early start and drove back to the rivers take out.
Disappointed the flow had dropped to almost half we had to fall back on paddling the Upper Takaka river.
With the bare minimum flow we still found some good action but lost alot of plastic in the process.

Shannon Mast - Walking into the Upper Takaka river.

Irish Graham gets it done on a cool 6m drop mid way through our day.


Shannon Mast finds his gold in Golden bay.