Hutbagging by fatbike and inflatable kayak

Packrafts aren't perfect. They do a great job of being jacks of all trades, but they have their limitations. Newer, more rigid crafts are being designed to be whitewater specialists, but on flat water nothing beats a proper kayak with a keel. Also packrafts are downright unsafe and dangerous to be in on open water in windy conditions. Let's face it, I needed a kayak.

I didn't want a hard shell, because I have nowhere to store such a huge piece of kit, and I also didn't have room to carry it on my vehicle with a full sized rooftop box already installed, so I decided to purchase an inflatable kayak from a retailer in Australia and have it shipped to NZ.

It's a fairly clever design with aluminium bow and stern ridges, but otherwise heavy duty PVC bladders covered with a hard wearing fabric. It uses similar stitched technology as used in inflatable SUPs to ensure  a rigid floor and it has a small keel to allow much better tracking. It's not as fast as a regular kayak, but it's not a bad compromise. 

I took it for a test run on Lake Wanaka and had a pleasant hour or so paddling, but then discovered it's major drawback: it takes forever to get it dry!!

Perhaps in Australia it dries easily, but not so here in drizzly autumnal NZ, where transporting a damp water craft between fresh water bodies is downright irresponsible. NZ has some very nasty water borne algae and bacteria that everyone is doing their best not to spread by cleaning and drying their equipment between watersheds. It literally takes days for it to be fully dry....

Following my eye checkup I headed out of town, this time over to Queenstown to Moke Lake, where I camped the night. The next morning I headed off on my Surly Wednesday to visit a couple of huts on the back side of Ben Lomond. There were a few hills to climb ( I walked them) but it's a much more comfortable way to cycle rough dirt roads than the gravel bike.

After Moke I headed south to Mavora Lakes, where I set up camp for a few days. The next morning was clear with not much breeze so I inflated the kayak and paddled up North Mavora Lake to visit West Burn Hut, encountering a bit of a headwind in the final hour to the hut. The kayak handled the wind well, though it was hard work. It would have been near impossible with the packraft. I had lunch and a cuppa, then paddled back, this time with a tailwind and a small rolling swell. The kayak handled the conditions well and the trip back took a fraction of the time of the trip out!!

Last time I was at Mavora with a bike I had a slow leak in my front tyre, but this time I had no such issues. I drove down to the fishing access on the Oreti and cycled the rough track downstream. It was muddy and rocky in places but the fat bike made short work of the terrain. Two huts were visited: Upper Oreti and Lincoln Hut, both cute old huts with real character. There are still a few huts I'm yet to visit in the Eyre Mountains, but they'll require a tramp!

But now it's north again, chasing the good weather....

It's time to upgrade my packraft

Before I left NZ last year I asked Huw to order me a new packraft. I'd decided that I was enjoying paddling higher grade whitewater, but was limited by only having a basic bucket boat, without any thigh straps. Everybody paddles with thigh straps, as it makes edging so much more efficient, except me! I figure if I can manage OK without them imagine how much better my paddling skills will be with them!

My initial plan had been to order an Alpacka Wolverine, but over the summer a newer, more whitewater specific boat got released, and everyone was raving about it. The Mage has a more rigid, rockered bow, allowing for more manoeuvrability and secondary stability, at the expense of primary stability. It's not a beginner's boat, and it will be a learning curve, but at only an extra kg on my current boat, I changed my order.

My boat hadn't arrived when I got back to NZ (actually it hadn't even been ordered!) so I headed off up to the Hurunui Hooley mid April to paddle with new and old friends. We camped at Lake Taylor on the Saturday night after a day paddling between Sisters Stream and Jollie Brook. The second day we paddled from Jollie Brook to Maori Gully, though I pulled out at the confluence with the south branch as I wasn't feeling quite up to a Grade 3 run.

Stu, Julie, Brent and I camped the night at Jollie Brook, and in the morning Julie and Brent headed home whilst Stu and I went for a day walk up to Coldstream Hut. The mushrooms were out, and Stu is an avid fan of photographing fungi, so it was a leisurely stroll punctuated by photo stops.

The walk up to Coldstream Hut follows the Jollie Brook for an hour or so before turning up the Coldstream. The track crosses the river many times. We counted the crossings on the way back. Stu's estimate of 50 crossings was pretty well spot on!!

The hut sits in a nice clearing above the picturesque stream. We had lunch and a cuppa, then retraced our steps, picking some field mushrooms to supplement our evening meal. We were in no rush so we stayed another night.

Stu was planning to join others for an epic paddle down the Landsborough on the West Coast, but he had a few days to spare and was looking for a paddling partner for some more cruisy paddles. We drove west, and south, booking in to a motor camp cabin overnight, where we washed all our packrafting gear to prevent spread of disease. Stu snores, so my earplugs got a good workout!

The next day we headed south of Haast towards Jackson Bay, with a plan to paddle the Jackson River to its confluence with the Arawhata. Stu was keen to also paddle Lake Ellery, so we walked in along the track, stopping continuously for more fungi photos, before inflating our rafts and going for a paddle on the lake. There wasn't time to paddle the entire lake so we just paddled to and around a small island and then floated down the stream back to our car. 

We then drove up the Jackson, scoping for a decent put in spot. We decided we didn't have enough daylight to do a car shuttle and a paddle that day anyway, so we drove all the way up to the end of the road near Martyr's Homestead and back, then found a nice bush camp by the river for the night.

The next morning we left Stu's car at the bridge and drove back to the put in. The river was easy grade 1-2 with a few tree strainers to avoid, a very relaxed paddle for both of us. Negotiating the braids once on the Arawhata to make it back to the car was well navigated by Stu, he's paddled the Arawhata before! 

Stu was having second thoughts about paddling the Landsborough. He was planning to leave his car at the takeout and I would drive him back to Wanaka to meet up with the rest of the crew, but he decided that with the predicted rain it might just be outside his pay scale. Instead, we decided to join another crew at Hokitika to paddle a few rivers around there.

We met the crew by the side of a road, but my head wasn't in it for another day of paddling. I'd yet to even pack my gear into my backpack, so I left the others to paddle the Kokatahi, and met up with them later for dinner in Hokitika.

The next day we paddled the Hokitika. Stu had decided he was ready for a break, and headed off on his own adventures, so I joined the others at the gorge carpark for the walk up the river. There was a gentle drizzle all morning, not enough to get cold, but I was grateful to have dry clothes to put on before getting into my drysuit.

We stopped for lunch just upstream of Rapid Creek Hut, having stayed on the true right past the cableway. Some of our party planned to walk up further to paddle some Grade 3 sections, but in the end we all just put in at the confluence with Rapid Creek and ferry glided across to visit the hut. 

Just as we headed off on the river we spied some hard shellers. That's a decent effort to carry a kayak all this way across uneven slippery terrain.

The river wasn't super low, the gauge at the gorge reading 40 cumecs, which made it a fairly easy run down, negotiating a few rapids and holes that I probably should have avoided in the first place. I had to pull in a few times to empty the water out of the boat, but I managed to stay upright and really enjoy the paddle. I also think having a more rigid boat courtesy of the high pressure hand pump from Alpacka, which I borrowed from the others, really helped. I'll be purchasing one of those with my new Mage!

The final bit through the gorge itself is really picturesque, with only a few hardy souls out sightseeing in the rain to photograph our brightly coloured boats floating past. 

Walking back to the cars, stripping off into new dry clothes and packing up our soaking wet gear was a bit of a mission, but we were soon back at our lodgings and enjoying a hot shower.

I headed off the next day, wandering south again, visiting Okarito and Roaring Billy waterfall on the Haast before finding myself back in Wanaka again. 

I had a scheduled checkup with my ophthalmic surgeon and then it was off for more adventures of a different kind. That's next...