Sleeping God Canyon, Kaueranga Valley

Getting all the way from Blenheim to Thames after a week of test flying in Woodbourne proved interesting. I ended up getting an Air New Zealand flight via Wellington, but didn’t arrive at Ohakea till about 1730h. From there I drove up to stay with Matt Natti at his place in Taupo. The following morning I awoke at 0400h to get on the road in time for a 0830h start! The weather was forecast to be occasional heavy showers, so I was a little apprehensive about driving 7hrs to find the canyon un descendible..

16 Feb 08
Despite the gloomy forecast and recent rain, 10 keen Kiwi Canyoners met up at the Kaueranga Visitor Center to do Sleeping God Canyon. Those there were; Neil Foxcroft,Peter Harrison, Pip Furness, Chris Coutts, Greg Smith, Daniel Clearwater, Colin Daniel, Pete Smith, Darren Scott and Brendon Nevin. It was incredibly satisfying to finally have a good gathering of Kiwi Canyoners after over 2 years of running the Yahoo! Group.

Following introduction and gear sharing, we began our daywith a sharp 40min climb up a good track to the top ofAtuatumohe (Sleeping God) Stream. The track crosses the stream directly, giving extremely simple access to a great canyon.

Neil led the way through a few downclimbs to where the action began. The first descent included the option of a rappel guide, or a rap to a ledge followed by an 8m jump. Niel was the only one to take the jump option; showing us how its done with an impressive back flip into the deep dark pool.

A couple of our group were feeling the cold a bit more than others, so I handed out a few spare bits of clothing to try to keep them warm.

Most of the waterfalls had bolts for installing hand lines, but we only made use of them on the more exposed pitches. The second waterfall was the biggie, a 70m descent down incredible columnar basalt. The ‘frenchfries’ style rock was a stunning backdrop to this fantastic waterfall.

There were several opportunities for big jumps between 9 and 13m (or 20m if you're Brendon Nevin..) I was very pleased to scrape together the guts to do the 9m jump and although it was pretty exciting I wasn’t really that keen for the bigger jumps. Brendon decided that rappelling the final pitch was a bit tame, so he climbed up above and out from the anchors and eventually made what was probably a 20m jump.

There wasn't much walking between obstacles, but good conversation amongst the group kept the waiting at the top of waterfalls interesting. It was certainly a different feel than my normal Canyoning trips, quite relaxed and chilled out.

Despite being a neat canyon, the fact that it was all being rigged and explained by Neil took away much of the interest and excitement of discovering the new ground for yourself. Even though it was interesting to watch the guys rigging the pitches with particular techniques, I relished the chance to set up and manage one rappel station myself. Neil brought a pair of 80m long 11mm semi-static ropes, which I found a lot harder to manage than my own 9mm cord.

Occasionally the heavens opened up and doused us with some strong showers to punctuate the sunshine. Our trip was about 5hrs return and culminated in some good fish n' chips and a good chinwag about the state of recreational canyoning in NZ.