Day 84, Feb 19 2010
Another wet morning and Peter, Sonja’s husband, and Lance their son, were early and at my door at 6:45am. We put all my belongings in the cabin of the ute and with me sitting in the tray holding onto the kayak Lance drove me the five-hundred metres up the road to the Foxton Boat Club’s boat ramp.
Another wet morning and Peter, Sonja’s husband, and Lance their son, were early and at my door at 6:45am. We put all my belongings in the cabin of the ute and with me sitting in the tray holding onto the kayak Lance drove me the five-hundred metres up the road to the Foxton Boat Club’s boat ramp.
At the boat ramp and ready to depart.
I was fascinated when Lance informed me that he was a pest controller and that he trapped possums, a protected native marsupial in Australia that was considered a pest here in New Zealand. Hunters attract the possums by smearing flour on the trunks of trees and strategically placing spring-loaded, flat jaw, snares. Possum fur is highly valued and at over $100/kg (12-15 possum pelts) is potentially a lucrative industry to New Zealand. Wow!
I said goodbye and thankyou to Lance and made my way along the smooth waters of the river towards the mouth. I felt confident enough of my ability now to tackle the surf and leave the camera mounted on the deck to capture the moment even though it was a good deal rougher than when I’d entered two days prior.
Not a hint of what lay ahead.
This turned out to be a mistake because when I hit one of the larger waves breaking out the back, the camera was separated from its attachment although I only noticed this upon bursting through the other side. In hindsight this was quite understandable with the force of the water it was subjected to but here I was in the midst of breaking waves in a dirty and fast flowing river mouth with an extremely expensive camera and housing somewhere in the water beside me hanging on, hopefully, by a tether.
Safely over a wave.
I had no choice but to stop my paddling and haul the line in praying that the all-important camera was still at the end of the line. It was, but by the time the next wave hit I was stationary and inevitably swamped and rolled. The camera was my immediate concern however and I was determined to hold onto it irrespective.
An image captured by the still running camera after its separation.
It was fortunate, despite two or three more waves crashing over the kayak and I - I had one hand firmly on the camera and one firmly on the kayak - that the river’s current swept us further out and safe from the breaking waves.
It took me twenty minutes to pump the cockpit dry and assess the outcome of the swamping. I had lost a water bladder that I stored in the kayak beneath me legs, but the manual pump, sponges, and cushion seat were all still with me having been ‘trapped’ inside the cockpit of the upside down kayak. All-in-all an outcome that I was thankful for because it could have been worse, so much worse, if I‘d lost the camera. I shudder even now when I type this and think of that scenario.
The brown silt loaded sea was extremely lumpy with a north-east breeze and chop crossing with an obvious south-east swell. The first sign of swell I’d encountered for literally weeks. I’d sighted a weather report on the television that morning for 30knot south-westerly winds and a 3 metre south-west swell with very rough seas. Of the three it was the swell that concerned me but for now it seemed not to be of the size suggested. I would have to maintain a vigil and would land if it looked like it was becoming unmanageable.
The township of Wanganui was 65km away. With the southerly winds forecast I imagined that this might not be out of my reach. Despite the delay at the river mouth I’d had an early start so I retained a faint hope that I might yet make this goal.
After the first two hours the seas actually got smoother and the swell did the opposite to what I had feared. It got smaller. The north-east breeze did not however make way for the southerly winds highlighting once more the fickle nature of New Zealand’s weather and the danger of relying wholly on the weather forecasters who I am sure are the first to acknowledge the unreliability of their science. What this did do was put Wanganui firmly out of reach on this day.
I continued to make my way along the unrelenting beach that was the coastline when at 1:00pm I began to feel ’flat’. It felt like I’d run into a current that was determined to work against me. Whether I’d simply hit the wall early or not I’m unsure, but for the next hour my progress felt laboured. I looked at my watch and with it indicating just past 2:00pm I made the decision to beach. With Wanganui almost certainly out of reach, but having covered more than half the distance to it from my starting point at Foxton I was comfortable with the decision.
With some trepidation I began making my way towards shore and the breaking surf. I was quite prepared and possibly even expecting of my second ‘swim’ for the day, so it was with a sense of both excitement and relief that we safely negotiated the waves. I am firmly of the belief that expecting the kayak to broach has completely altered my approach to the landings through the surf.
The brown silt loaded sea was extremely lumpy with a north-east breeze and chop crossing with an obvious south-east swell. The first sign of swell I’d encountered for literally weeks. I’d sighted a weather report on the television that morning for 30knot south-westerly winds and a 3 metre south-west swell with very rough seas. Of the three it was the swell that concerned me but for now it seemed not to be of the size suggested. I would have to maintain a vigil and would land if it looked like it was becoming unmanageable.
The township of Wanganui was 65km away. With the southerly winds forecast I imagined that this might not be out of my reach. Despite the delay at the river mouth I’d had an early start so I retained a faint hope that I might yet make this goal.
After the first two hours the seas actually got smoother and the swell did the opposite to what I had feared. It got smaller. The north-east breeze did not however make way for the southerly winds highlighting once more the fickle nature of New Zealand’s weather and the danger of relying wholly on the weather forecasters who I am sure are the first to acknowledge the unreliability of their science. What this did do was put Wanganui firmly out of reach on this day.
I continued to make my way along the unrelenting beach that was the coastline when at 1:00pm I began to feel ’flat’. It felt like I’d run into a current that was determined to work against me. Whether I’d simply hit the wall early or not I’m unsure, but for the next hour my progress felt laboured. I looked at my watch and with it indicating just past 2:00pm I made the decision to beach. With Wanganui almost certainly out of reach, but having covered more than half the distance to it from my starting point at Foxton I was comfortable with the decision.
With some trepidation I began making my way towards shore and the breaking surf. I was quite prepared and possibly even expecting of my second ‘swim’ for the day, so it was with a sense of both excitement and relief that we safely negotiated the waves. I am firmly of the belief that expecting the kayak to broach has completely altered my approach to the landings through the surf.
On the beach, right way up!
I put up my tent in the dunes as the clouds were burnt away by the afternoon sun.
My tent nestled behind the dunes with the clouds having completely disappeared.
The location and terrain provided a sense of wilderness as I cooked a celebratory freeze-dried meal of “Mexican Chicken” with a packet of noodles.
The kayak, high above the tide mark.
I had paddled slightly less than 40km and only had 28km to go to reach Wanganui. I looked at the surf through which I’d arrived whilst thinking of the 3 metre forecast and hoped that it would not prove an impassable barrier to my departure tomorrow. I did not have much water left after losing the water bladder at the beginning of the day.
