EYE4ADVENTURE: April 2007

Thursday, April 26, 2007

An afternoon on the Toaroha

Two weekends ago I went over to Greymouth to visit Megan who's doing a physio placement at the Greymouth Hospital. While I was there we met up with Ben & Elise from Wavemonkey Australia.

Ben & Elise were in NZ for two weeks and were keen to check out some of the West coast creeks, unfortunately there had been no rain. We checked out the Styx which looked very low & opted to go for walk up it's neighbouring river the Toaroha. An hour and a quarter of boggy mud later we were at the put-in, low water meant that the rapids weren't technically difficult but a good time was had by all.

Check out the photos & video. All photos are courtesy of Ben & Elise www.wavemonkey.com.au

Meg's enjoying the pleasant walk.

Elise getting a taste of NZ's natural beauty.

Ahh the put in.

Megs

Elise

Ben

Antz

and a small video, I'm just getting used to the new video editing program on the MAC.

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

River Festival & Slalom Photos

Here's a collection of photos from photochick.co.nz she keeps popping up at kayak events throughout the south island. Some quality shots which are all available free online via her website.

A few of her shots from Bullerfest 2007 made it into issue 2 of CUMEC magazine too.

Aaron Osborne from Rotorua, currently ranked #1 in the NZL slalom team.

Me, mid extreme race on the Citreon Rapid.

Me leading the peleton... well actually there was about 8 people infront.

Ngaio Hart

Stu Daniels playing during the mass start race.

Dylan Thomson in the head 2 head extreme race.

James Dawson on his way to winning the national C1 title.

Barney Young gets amongst like it a true west coaster.

Thursday, April 19, 2007

CUMEC Magazine Issue 2

After a few months of playing around in Indesign, emails back & forth from contributors & a few anxious nights Cumec Magazine Issue 2 is finally here.

Ready to make it's mark on the NZ & Australian kayaking communities, a real stand alone independent kayaking magazine for the general public, no shop or business affiliations just kayakers providing news & articles for kayakers. I'm stoked so hope everyone enjoys (despite the few grammatical errors!)

Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Teva River Festival 2007

The Teva River Festival was held of Easter Weekend in Central Otago, the event ran alongside the NZ Open Slalom Nationals. Mike Dawson from Tauranga dominated both events winning the extreme race, mass start down river race & Open Mens Slalom Championship.

A top weekend which consisted of the head 2 head extreme race on the Citreon Rapid - Grade 4, Grand Prix Slalom in plastic boats & a mass start down river race. I kept my performances equal and finished in the middle of each event. Knocked out in the top 16 for the extreme race, getting about 8th in the slalom & somewhere about 10th in the mass start.

Since I was too busy enjoying being on the river all the pictures are by Jono Conway & Megan Foster.

The Arnold River & Random Pic's

The Arnold River is a short drive from Greymouth, a small grade 2 river that is the local training grounds for Tai Poutini Polytech & Grey High School students. A regular flow and nice eddy lines make a fun little trip down the river.

Spent the afternoon in the sun with Megs & Viv Buxton who has just starting working at Grey Vet's. The first half of the run was pretty smooth with some nice little eddy lines, we spent about 20 minutes playing in the most pathetic hole I've ever stopped to park 'n' play in!

Further down the run there were a few nice catch on the fly waves & holes.

As with many rivers the Arnold is under threat from a dam proposal, submissions have closed and we await to see the outcome for a fantastic wee run that would be impossible to replace if lost.

Now to the random photos