Carew Creek Canyon, Lake Brunner

After a successful saturday's canyoning, we headed to the west coast for a bit of Granite Canyon action.

Embracing the west coast bush

We got a little lost on the first try to get to the top of the canyon, heading a bit too far away from the watercourse. It was pretty steep; basically we were climbing on the roots of little trees. It was just a little ridiculous so we retraced the steps and made it to the top without further problems.

Grant on R1

The canyon was a stellar granite chute, with back to back waterfalls, deep pools and carved granite bowls. There wasn't too much water on our trip, but I'm sure it could get pretty sporting pretty quickly.

R1 30m

Grant and Chucky chilling out.

The canyon was guided previously and had hangarless bolts stations allready in place. The bolts seemed to be in Ok shape. A few had obviously been hit by rocks, but all the bare bolts took nuts and hangars.

Grant on R2

R2

We left the rope in on R3 and did laps of the drop. You could either jump from 5m or 9m ledges or do a 8m near vertical slide!

Brendon shows his style with a superman slide

And then decides to abort halfway down...

Little downscramble/mini slide to get to the last drop

Brendon starting down Carew Falls

Chucky on Carew Falls

Goofing around at the bottom.

The last drop was beautiful and ended at a nice plunge pool where we could jump, slide and goof around in before heading home.

Kea Canyon, Arthurs Pass

Had a great days Canyoning in Arthurs Pass with Grant and Brendon.

Enroute to the Canyon

Shallow jump near the head of the canyon

After the 45m pitch

Amazing views accross the valley

Grant enjoying R8

jumping in the lower Canyon


A nice cavern 2/3 the way down

More jumps downstream

In the lower slot

Nina Valley Fishing, Lewis Pass

I had been invited to Annabel's wedding in Waiau on Saturday of Waitangi weekend, so was at a bit of a loss to find people to share a trip with for the Friday. Eventually, I decided to take myself on an overnight fishing trip into the Nina River in Lewis Pass.

Crossing the Lewis River enroute to the Nina

Lovely grassy clearings in the lower Nina Valley

Wandering for about an hour from the road, I reached the beautiful pools of the Nina and eagerly began to assemble my fly line. Whilst I was getting ready, the local sandfly population was having a field day on any scrap of exposed flesh. Out came the long pants and I began wishing i'd brought my fingerless gloves..

The pool with the two submarine sized (12lb+) Brown Trout...

The braids of the Nina above the swingbridge.

Didn't see a single fish all day, so when the wind began to blow and the clouds threatened, I gave up fishing and joined the track up to Nina Hut. The track climbed steadily upward and made me wonder if i'd missed the hut altogether, but eventually the waft of woodsmoke signalled the proximity of the hut.

It was rather full, so I bivvied out a short distance from the hut. In a coincedence, my next door neighbour Tim had also fished up the river today, and told me of the 12lb monster he'd caught. Though I no reason to doubt him, it was a fishermans tale... The next day on the way back to the car I spotted the very same monster and spent an hour trying to entice it onto my line. Clearly it had learnt a thing or two and wasn't interested at all...

SH7 to Nina Hut 1h50m

Cave Stream

Did an afternoon's adventure training with my workmates from the Christchurch Recruiting Office.We managed to kit everyone out in all the warm gears, so I was comfy that the girls would be nice and warm and enjoy thier experience.

Despite a little bit of nerves down the ladder at the head of the cave, everyone did really well. Jac and Mack were like spiders, climbing things left, right and center :)

It took us about an hour to wander through the cave and by the end everyone was rapt to have had the chance to go through.

Wandering towards certain adventure..

Spaz does a great job of descending the ladder at the inflow

Jac, Mack, Marg and Spaz

Jac and Mack enjoying the limestone formations

Nearing the exit

A happy CRRO team at the cave outflow

Robinson Ck Two

It had rained during the evening, so we were a little concerned about the water levels for todays planned trip to Robinson Creek. As we drove north towards Haast Pass, the sky was rather grey and the occaisonal shower passed through. I was a little loath to call off the days canyoning, but also not that keen to take through a couple of beginners with marginal neoprene in marginal conditions.

I hmmed and haa'd for a while before Jodi suggested that Cedric and I do a quick lap of the canyon whilst her and Mack enjoyed a bit of Coffee Culture at Makarora.

Not needing encouragement, Frenchy and I got ready and dissapeared up the hill. Giving ourselves 2.5hrs round trip before expecting pickup, I figured we'd be fine moving quickly and efficiently through a canyon I'd done before.

First drop, with a little more water than last time.

About to get the rope stuck...

But today, the water was quite a bit higher than the first time I'd been through. On the second rappel, I had to have a couple of goes at breaking out of an eddy which had collected me. A little downstream, we stuck the rope on a short downscramble. Cedric climbed back up to free it and we continued on.

Allez Cedric!

The canyon water was a light tea colour, instead of its usual emerald glory. We'd checked the next door Wilsons creek, which was flowing low and blue, so it was a little surprising that Robinson was up (being less than 200m between canyon mouths..)

On the log jam rap before the final few beautiful pitches, we well and truely stuck our rope. The carabiner blocking single strand set up had jammed in a tree fork and no amount of pulling, z-draging or yanking would do. I had a go at ascending back up the fall line, but the amount of water was a little scary so I backed off after a few bites of the climb to think it through. Cedric had more luck climbing out around the water, using the ascenders as a self belay.

Admiring the Cavern pitch

Despite being a little worried about the big cavern drop in this water level, it proved quite straighforward and I was glad to be past the crux of the trip. We were able to warm up a little pulling the rope and enjoying the cavern, before making the last couple of drops in the canyon.

The sun was deliciously warm as we waited for Jodi and Mack, but the sandflies were relentless.. Another day in paradise...