Saturday, January 17, 2009

Kawarau gorge and Qeenstown

Heya,

After one week finally based on the beautiful south island of New Zealand. I ve come to Cromwell like 5 days ago where I met three mates from Czech and one mate from US. We ve spent last week by working on Cherries or Wineyard and kayaking in afternoon. Awesome time. My mates are Jakub Sedivy who took the pictures, Pavel Bendl who is based in Qeenstown for last 18 months and Jindra Benes who is awesome slalom kayaker, he is always keen to paddle the hardest shit and paddles so smooth. Fourth guy is Ty Bequette from US Idaho and is really good kayaker as well. Perfect crew for working and kayaking as much as possible.

We have paddled classic rapid of mighty Kawarau river called Citroen rapid. There are three nice lines to do. Left is the hardest. Central is central and nice and the right one is technical and really good fun. Always good to do all three lines and then the rest of the rapid which is just bigwater fun.

Last Friday we have decided to paddle Retrospect rapid which is like 8 kilometers below the Citroen rapid. Its pretty hard rapid with two nasty holes. Bigwater entry on the left, nasty hole on the right and right behind it is another nasty hole on the left. I have paddled it with Jindra. He is one of the best kayakers I ve ever seen and he has not fear at all. Cool. He hit the right hole and then missed the left one. Good line. I tried to miss the right one and then couldn’t paddle over the stream to right so I ve got spanked in the left hole. Unfortunelly had to swin after one year but it was a good signal from the river. Thanks.

On Friday night there were some showers around Qeenstown and in Fjordland so we have called our local guy Pavel Bendl. He told should be good to paddle Routeburn river. And it was! Its beautiful technical, and quite steep kayaking. We caught perefect flow and had good fun all the way down the river. Thanks to Pavel for a good kayaking day, place to sleep and drink beers in Qeenstown.

Today, on Sunday morning we are drinking coffee and looking for some good rivers to do. We can do Shotover which is like funny class 4 or can do our home run Citroen rapid at higher flow. Might will do both or might just hang out in Qeenstown. But probably do some kayaking before next week when we have to work as a slaves haha.

See yah
Pictures by: Jakub Sedivy - Thanks a lot!

drinking beer in qeenstown

Qeenstown view

Pavel in a last rapid of Routeburn river

me in a last rapid - Routeburn river

Pavel in entry to last rapid

Routeburn riva'

One of the main rapids

Pavel on the Routeburn

Driving to Routeburn...

...in my bautiful Mazda 121

me in a Retrospect rapid before spanking

Jindra in a Retrospect getting out of the first hole

Jindra entry of Retrospect

Ty on a Citroen rapid

Jakub (photographer) on Citroen

Pavel and Rich on Citroen

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