It was the coldest summers day I remember, we got dropped at the Waimakariki river with a couple of rafts, camping and fishing stuff, thanks Steve! The Waimak river flows from Arthurs pass out of the range towards Christchurch. The plan was to raft 70km of the Waimak over 4 days. Day 1's mission about 16km of braided river until a couple of smaller rivers flow in. I was not excited about getting wet, I thought I was coming back to summer but nah. I'm doing this trip with my old man, Pete. It's his idea for this trip but I was stoked on coming along. It was quite a fun day of mostly rafting, stopped and fished quite a few times but didn't catch much, a bit disappointing. 16km seemed like a real long way in a raft. Made it to day 1's destination and set up camp for the night.
Woke up to a solid frost over everything. Everything I though would dry overnight was frozen. The sun couldn't come up fast enough. After some breakfast we went for a wander up this the side river, the 'Esk'. After a few km we hadn't seen a fish so flagged it and headed back almost scaring a herd of cows though our campsite, I had to scrub bash to turn them away. After seeing almost no fish this trip so far we were keen to move on. Hopefully down to the mouth of ‘Broken River’. Day 2’s rafting was real cool. The the river started weaving though some tighter canyons, the water was faster and it was just kinda impressive how massive some of the cliffs were right next to us. Pretty cool! Even got a couple of fish along the way for dinner. We made it to broken river kind of late and set up camp. Another big day down, rafting is exhausting. Fish for dinner, cooked in tinfoil in the fire with soy and wasabi, it was surprisingly good, usually not much of a trout fan!
Our campsite at the mouth of broken river was quite epic, a good fire place and we flipped the rafts upside down and pitch our tents on top of them so sleeping was super comfy. There was tons of deer tracks around the place and that morning almost walked round a corner into a couple. Got a few fish this day although mostly small. One crazy thing about this area is the bumble bees, there is mad bumble bees, I never knew that. They land on anything colourful and are always landing on you. I like bumble bees but they got pretty annoying. Somehow we both got bumble bees in our tents, Pete got stung by a cheeky one in his sleeping bag. We decided to stay another night in this spot.
Day 4 was a leisurely raft ride to our pick up spot. Felt good to be back in the rafts after a day off. only a 4 day trip but it seems like I’ve been away a lot longer with no reception or technology. Don’t go without that very often, its good. Another rad trip down!!
Woke up to a solid frost over everything. Everything I though would dry overnight was frozen. The sun couldn't come up fast enough. After some breakfast we went for a wander up this the side river, the 'Esk'. After a few km we hadn't seen a fish so flagged it and headed back almost scaring a herd of cows though our campsite, I had to scrub bash to turn them away. After seeing almost no fish this trip so far we were keen to move on. Hopefully down to the mouth of ‘Broken River’. Day 2’s rafting was real cool. The the river started weaving though some tighter canyons, the water was faster and it was just kinda impressive how massive some of the cliffs were right next to us. Pretty cool! Even got a couple of fish along the way for dinner. We made it to broken river kind of late and set up camp. Another big day down, rafting is exhausting. Fish for dinner, cooked in tinfoil in the fire with soy and wasabi, it was surprisingly good, usually not much of a trout fan!
Our campsite at the mouth of broken river was quite epic, a good fire place and we flipped the rafts upside down and pitch our tents on top of them so sleeping was super comfy. There was tons of deer tracks around the place and that morning almost walked round a corner into a couple. Got a few fish this day although mostly small. One crazy thing about this area is the bumble bees, there is mad bumble bees, I never knew that. They land on anything colourful and are always landing on you. I like bumble bees but they got pretty annoying. Somehow we both got bumble bees in our tents, Pete got stung by a cheeky one in his sleeping bag. We decided to stay another night in this spot.
Day 4 was a leisurely raft ride to our pick up spot. Felt good to be back in the rafts after a day off. only a 4 day trip but it seems like I’ve been away a lot longer with no reception or technology. Don’t go without that very often, its good. Another rad trip down!!
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