8. Whakahoro – Ohauora (WRJ 3)

Saturday, February 16: The valley and surrounds were covered in fog which soon lifted; a couple of clouds, otherwise hot & sunny, stronger easterlies

Kayaking: 25.8 km

Ohauora Campiste (Doc, $20)

It seemed like no one wanted to go to bed last night until I suggested closing the windows to the bunkroom, then we were all tucked in for what was going to be a cold night after all.

And no one seemed willing to get up until it was well & truly light after 7:00. I started boiling some water then taking some photos of the fog enshrouded environs. Within a while all were up and about, Geraint & Paulina were going to call it a day because of Geraint’s cold, Kikki and Julian wanted breakfast in the Blue Duck Café. When you think of it, $4 for a shower, $20 for the meal and whatever it was that breakfast cost, it was a fairly good deal.

I was not in a hurry. First of all the gimbal had to be tested in literally a dry run. The device switches on as soon as there is power so something is wrong with the circuit, but it did stabilise the camera for a test run of over half an hour and was this deemed usable. With that field test out of the way I collected my belongings (two trips, although could have been better organised) and went down to the boat where Geraint & Paulina had already paddled away to be plucked out and Kikki & Julian were just about to leave.

Spray skirt & life jacket were dry today inside and out, as was most of the inside of the boat. I had the smaller backpack with me today with the shoes in case they were needed; everything necessary for the day except a change of batteries was in the pack; the bandaids were in the plastic bag for the two bob watch. To start camera and gimbal I carefully set the boat to water, switched on the camera & changed to shooting mode, fired up the gimbal & got it working in “red” mode (#2), then started the shooting – could hear, “Click, click, click…” and hoped that was sufficient. Then I hopped into the boat, pulled the spray skirt on & off I set.

It is advantageous to put the bandaids on after the spray skirt, because otherwise they rub off partially & are soon lost.

Youtube Video

Every now & then I passed couples in canoes, as they had been let into the river well before we started. Eventually I caught up with Kikki & Julian, just before Mangapapa where they also wanted a break. One canoe was already moored to a rocky outcrop to the front of the campsite. I wanted to take the more daring approach of going right up to the rapids and taking a sharp (& I mean sharp) left hand turn into a backwater that had a couple of rocky landing opportunities. Later I saw some people getting out on the river side and towing their canoes around, and even later one couple in a canoe going for the right hand side of the rapids and one of the people had to get out and push because they got stuck on a rock.

Anyway we were out and becoming joined by increasing numbers of canoeists over the course of the next hour. The river was becoming quite populated – I tried a joke of saying that it looked like the Spanish Armada was on its way, and could I finish my lunch before having to deal with them, but history was not a strong point on the river today. But the big question was: Had camera & gimbal finally worked together? They had! I had over 3,000 shots, very well stabilised, very little sign of the bias that turned up at home, although I will have to see about this in detail when I am out of the river. Anyway after showing around a couple of photos it was time for lunch (muesli bars & an apple) then a short wait for a pee (“Everyone must use the toilet” was on a sign), followed by setting up the camera for the afternoon shoot. Batteries in the camera were half empty, and so had to be replaced, the card was less than half full and was deemed still usable, and the batteries in the gimbal were still going strong.

Slide Show

Got everything going again to the compliments of various bystanders. I spoke to a couple who had their own Prijon sea kayak with them, then off I was through the rapids to catch up with some who had left before me and some who had sailed on through. Towards the end I caught up with a group of three Americans, one of whom had just jumped off a cliff, and included a woman on a sit-on-top with a barrel. Chatting with them was interrupted by my spotting a whio. Had to take a photo, of course, and as it was sited in the middle of a rapid this took a couple of rounds before the shot was in the box. Then Ohauora turned up: I beached the boat, took up the tent & spot tracker to claim some real estate, then my other stuff, set up the tent, went for a swim & washed all the clothes, the spray skirt and the life jacket, put on some deet (discovered two bites on the right foot) & spiderman suit, prepared the dinner (double instant noodles with one very ripe tomato & a carrot, was quite enough).

Interactive Map

This time the memory card on the camera had run out just before the end.

The only others here are Ross & Sasha from the Powderkeg. They had just run out of gas, and Ross was preparing a campfire on the shingle bank, when I decided I could give them one of my gas bottles (turned out to be the very full one, but I really only had one more night to go, and it was only for me). They were very grateful, as I suspect that a campfire for breakfast would have been quite an effort. Anyway, they invited me to the Powderkeg for a beer when I’m back.

Today’s timetable: