NZWW Foreword (2006)
Hi there and congratulations on a sensible purchase. You have just bought the accumulated knowledge of 40 or so years of paddling in New Zealand. Please remember that guide books are a double-edged sword. With this book and various Regional Council river flow websites you can start to form a decent picture of the mission you are about to embark on and a good deal of the mystery has been swept away. But the reality is the same as ever.
In the 'old days' (ten years ago!) none of this information was available other than by word of mouth. So a good deal of sleuthing was required, which took time and persistence and proved to be a initial filter for aspiring expedition boaters.
With the advent of the information age it is now possible to meet in the café in Hokitika, go online, check the flows, check the weather forecast, look out over the Tasman sea to see if there is a weather front coming, ring a pilot and be winging your way up some beautiful west coast valley in under two hours. You're soon about to land in some very remote and quite possibly very dangerous terrain.
If you are an established group of kayaking friends:- fit, skilful, experienced, paddling well at your grade with good teamwork and a desire to do the river in style then well done! The day is yours to enjoy.
On the other hand, if you are busy introducing yourself to a bunch of complete strangers when the helicopter noise dies down, then lookout! You are effectively soloing with your life in your own hands and in the presumed rescue skills of your brand new buddies. You have avoided the long 'walk in' where you have a chance to assess the fitness level of your team; you have avoided the 'history' where you know of your teams' technical skills and now your chance to assess them comes on the hardest move of the day. On the Perth you have about five minutes to gel as a team; on the Hokitika about three; on the Arahura about 30 seconds before the action begins!
What is team work? On the river it is a good understanding of the skill level and paddling style of your companions, a common set of river signals, an established code of when to run and when to scout, a high level of rescue skills both with a rope and in the kayak and a highly tuned empathy between team members with regard to critical route finding and river running judgement.
You could be lucky. It could be the best first date of your life, a smooth day of dancing down the rapids in perfect harmony with only intuitive nods and eye contact with your team; an instant rapprochement with your soul brothers and sisters! Maybe the rescue skills won't even come into play!
But don't count on it. Teamwork takes time and isn't instantly developed under pressure. Leave your ego at home and try something at bit easier to start with. Take time to build the team that you are paddling with.
On the West Coast we also have an official SAR team. But experience and statistics have already shown that the R stands for Recovery and not Rescue. To date the Tasman White Water Rescue Unit has had one live recovery, a Canadian paddler who was benighted on the Kakapotahi and spent ten hours cuddling up with his kayak. The helicopter found him at dawn. But remember he wasn't really lost. He just couldn't see in the dark.
Look to your skill, fitness, and training. Look to the weather. While I was writing this foreword in Wyoming the local river, the Snake reached its spring peak of 20,000 cfs (about 600 cumecs). This was the result of the gradual snowmelt over a three month period and was very predictable. The same day the Snake River peaked New Zealand was hit by the biggest storm since 1945. The Buller, with a similar sized catchment to the Snake river, went from 1000 cfs to 165,000 cfs (30 cumecs to 5000 cumecs) in 18 hours! After a big rainfall all bets are off. Treat the river as a first descent again.
Graham's guide book will not predict meteorological phenomena or assist with personal inexperience and bad decisions. With all these caveats behind you go out and enjoy yourselves on some of the most beautiful, most isolated, yet accessible rivers, in the world.
Mick Hopkinson
June 2006
