Summer Downunder

Today is officially the last day of summer in New Zealand despite continued sunshine and with days averaging 25 degrees and it has been one of the best summers I can remember so this is a quick recap of some of the highlights.

Working hard or hardly working? This is what I do for a job but usually it’s hard to call it work. Hanging out on the river with your mates and terrifying tourists doesn’t feel like work most days, definitely beats sitting behind a desk. Having a boss who gives you time off to go to extreme races and doesn’t mind if you mysteriously disappear for the winter months is just an added bonus.

 

New Zealand has a pretty awesome race season with a series of fun races and events. The race season kicked off with a brand new event called the Okere Enduro which was the brain child of Ben Robson. This race follows a similar format to a mountain bike enduro race with teams of 3 one of whom must be female. There was also an option for individual entry if you couldn’t find yourself a team. For the race course you had to paddle down the river, then carry your boat up to a trailer which was shuttling kayaks back to the top, then you had to run up a track back to the starting point and tag your team mate in roughly a 3km loop. The race was run over 6 hours and the aim was to complete as many laps as possible. The winning team (Luuka Jones, Tim Pickering & Pete Lodge) completed 24 laps and the top guy (Jamie Sutton) 21 laps and top girl (Kylie LB) 19 laps pretty amazing effort from all involved especially the volunteers and organisers who made sure everything ran smoothly.

Sophie Hoskins (Third), Luuka Jones (Second), and Toni George (First) in the progressive boater X

 

 

The Okere Enduro was followed by the Xmas@Kaituna event which happens every year on the last Saturday before Christmas. This year we had a time trial race down the whole river followed by a progressive boater X over 5 sections of the river then a freestyle ‘expression session’ where everyone just had some fun in the Kaituna hole. The main attraction of the day for a lot of people is the pool toy float where everyone grabs a pool toy from the warehouse then swims down the river holding onto it. I find it takes the ‘this is not a flotation device’ disclaimer to a whole new level.

 

The next event was the Andy Duff Memorial Race. Race format is a mass start, categories are Short Boat, Long Boat, Duo, Sledge/Swim, Raft. Trophies are given out for first place in each category and a bonus trophy for the best carnage of the day. The winners of the latter category were the crew in the upside down raft in the above photo.

Above Luuka and I battle it out in the Semi Final

The most recent race was the Wairoa Extreme Race, a time trial race down the top grade 4 section of the Wairoa which seeds people for head to head knock out races down a short grade 5 section known as the waterfall and rollercoaster. I ended my 3 year winning streak to lose to Lou Urwin in the final an Kenny Mutton got his own back on Jamie Sutton for beating him last year by knocking him out in the semi’s then cruised past Tyler Fox to win the final.