From couch to take-out: putting a price on one of New Zealand’s greatest packrafting adventures.
I had an unusual enquiry a few weeks back, and for some reason it’s been living rent-free in my head ever since.
Let me explain.
The email came from a couple planning to undertake the Hollyford–Pyke loop, one of the great packrafting journeys in New Zealand, and arguably the world. They wanted to know how much it would cost to hire packrafts from us after completing one of our courses.
Fair enough. It’s a question we’ve had before.
I dutifully replied, explaining that we offer seven days’ rental for the price of four to make longer adventures more affordable. I outlined the costs, what was included, and how it all worked.
A day or two later, another email arrived.
They’d done some calculations and were a little exasperated to discover that by the time they’d paid for a course and hired the equipment, it might actually be cheaper just to buy their own packrafts.
I had a bit of a chuckle.
Not because it was a silly question. Quite the opposite, actually. It was a perfectly reasonable observation. It just wasn’t a way I’d ever thought about our courses before.
We spend an enormous amount of time thinking about what we teach and how we teach it. We’ve assembled a team of incredible instructors with high levels of qualifications, experience and skill. We obsess over course content, learning outcomes and how to create an environment where people can make real progress.
There’s a whole culture behind it. A team of people constantly looking for tiny improvements in how we deliver our courses, challenging each other to raise standards and finding better ways to pass on what we’ve learned.
And here was someone who’d looked at the whole thing from a completely different angle.
“Yeah, but how cheaply can I get my hands on a raft?”
Brilliant. It was so unexpected, that it was pure gold. I’m sure it wasn’t meant to be funny, but it genuinly made me LOL.
It was a bit like spending years perfecting a recipe, only to discover someone was primarily interested in whether the meal came with free parking.
I genuinely hadn’t considered that the value of one of our courses might, for some people, be measured partly by the opportunity to hire equipment afterwards.
But the more I thought about it, the more reasonable it seemed.
Because isn’t that how most adventures begin?
You see a photo, watch a film or hear a story about somewhere extraordinary. Something stirs. You start imagining yourself there, doing the thing, having the adventure.
Then you look into what it might actually involve.
The equipment. The time. The travel. The skills you don’t have yet. The small matter of getting yourself home again.
And suddenly the whole thing starts looking a little out of reach.
We’ve all been there.
I’ve certainly been there. And plenty of our guides started their own outdoor journeys with whatever cheap-ass equipment they could afford, gradually upgrading bits and pieces as their experience grew and their bank balances allowed.
There’s something rather wonderful about that progression. The battered old gear, the questionable purchases, the things you made work because you couldn’t afford anything better. The adventures you managed to squeeze out of equipment that probably had no business being taken quite so seriously.
You don’t need to own the best of everything to have extraordinary experiences.
And, frankly, there’s something very satisfying about finding a way to make an adventure happen when the conventional route looks financially out of reach.
So I completely understand why someone might look at the cost of a guided Hollyford–Pyke expedition and start exploring alternatives.
Could you buy your own raft? Borrow some equipment? Do a course, hire the specialist gear and tackle the trip independently?
Of course you could explore those options.
In fact, helping people develop the skills to undertake their own adventures is a huge part of what we do. We’d be pretty bloody pleased to see someone come through our courses, develop their experience and eventually head off to tackle an expedition like the Hollyford–Pyke under their own steam.
But the enquiry had got me thinking.
Was it actually cheaper to buy everything?
Not just the raft, but everything you’d need to complete the expedition independently.
Because while a packraft might set you back $2,800, you’re going to need considerably more than a boat and a sense of adventure to get yourself around Fiordland.
And that’s before we even start talking about the skills and experience required.
So I thought we’d have a proper look.
Not to convince everyone that they need a guide. They don’t. Plenty of experienced packrafters undertake extraordinary independent journeys, and that’s something we wholeheartedly celebrate.
And certainly not to suggest that you need to spend a fortune on shiny new equipment before you’re allowed to call yourself an adventurer. Some of the best adventures of my life have involved gear that was held together by optimism and a few questionable repairs.
But I was genuinely curious.
What does it actually cost to go from sitting on your couch, dreaming about the Hollyford–Pyke, to standing at the take-out having completed it under your own steam?
The raft. The pack. The paddle. The drysuit. The camping equipment. The rescue gear. The food. The transport. The DOC fees. The training.
The whole bloody lot.
And then, because it seemed only fair, we’d compare that with hiring the gear, doing a course, and joining a guided expedition.
Obviously, the answer depends enormously on where you’re starting from.
If you’re an experienced tramper with a garage full of outdoor equipment, you’re already halfway there. If you’re a seasoned packrafter, you’ve probably got nearly everything you need.
But what if you’re starting from scratch?
You’ve seen the photos. You’ve heard the stories. You’ve decided that floating your way through some of the wildest country in New Zealand sounds like a pretty excellent use of your time.
And now you want to know what it’s going to cost.
From couch to take-out. Let’s see what this thing really costs.
First you’re going to need a boat. That’s the obvious bit. Now, like i say, myself and many of our guides started with cheap Aliexpress rafts. Try before you buy. Low risk way of finding out if you love something or not. God Bless Frontier Rafts. These are circa $500-$600 at time of writing, they’re made by Audac, the same people and same factory as Blue Duck Packafts and are perfectly servicible… but maybe for something more front country. Where failure doesn’t matter so much. Because the truth is they’re just not quite a durable. We have a “Cheap way to get into Packrafting” article to read too which will factor those rafts in, but for this experiement, we’ll assume we are going to buy a higher quality raft.
For the Hollyford, the best raft to take, is probably the Alpacka Aleutian because it’s so fast, it makes short work of the lakes, doesn’t get bullied by the wind and has internal storage for expeditions. But I don’t want to include the top end equipment in this. I’d like to keep it realisitic. Middle of the road. The Chinook is another flat water boat, better for the hiking portions, fast across lakes and wind. Bough through Alpacka you’re looking at around $3490 or $3090 through us. But it would be totally legit to buy a Gnarwhal as your first raft. Super versatile, more whitewater focused but still amazing at expeditions. $2999. Lets call it $3000.
You’ll need a paddle next. Now a paddle is something you can spend a wildly variable amount on. Anything from $60 to $1300. A pretty popular packrafting paddle is the Aquabound Manta Ray at about $350. Again, in our expereince, not likely to be a forever paddle, hence we stopped selling them. But almost certainly the most popular choice for beginners.
Running total $3350.
Then you’ll need a PFD. Lets say you start with something lightwieght for this trip, something like the Astral YTV 2.0 at around $300ish. Not a full blown whitewater PFD initially.
Running Total $3650.
Helmet next. Let’s call this one $150. Again, just a simple, light cheap one to start you off. Nothing expensive.
Running Total $3800.
Wetsuit/Drysuit. Again a cheap drysuit is probably around the $1500 mark. But for the first 7 years of my river guiding career I worked in wetsuits. A good wetsuit is actually really warm, but the wind does whip the heat away from you farily easily. But for a first timer, lets imagine folks are in a wetsuit and rain jacket to work as a proxy for a splash jack for extra warmth.Lets say that’s $350.
Running total $4150.
Little bit of safety gear. Nothing over the top, just a throw bag, knife an whistle. Lets say $150 for all three. Throw in some basic repair gear too and we’ll call it $200.
Running total $4350.
Now for the rest of the gear, let’s assume at this stage that you’ve got a tramping pack. Whilst it might be a couple of kg heavier than a packrafting pack, it’s still very servicable. We’ll assusme you’ve got some shoes and socks you’re happy to sacifice to the water gods for a week and all of the other camping gear stoves, tents, sleeping bags, water bottle, head torches etc you’ve got already. We’ll also assume you’re happy to be with a bow bag, pack-a-pump or internal dry bags.
That’s pretty good going. You’ve obviously got your food and fuel to factor in and some petrol to get to the road end, but in terms of gear, you can probably get started for less than $4.5k. Still not cheap, but it’ll be gear you’ll use again and again without a doubt. A course and renting gear is still a good option financially and actually even a guided trip is cheaper than buying this stuff too. I’d imagine if you didn’t have tramping gear already, the upper end of what you could spend to be more comfortable would be around $7k, but for most people, you’ll get started with gear you can beg borrow or get for cheap, then over the years slowly upgrade to spread that cost out. And to be fair, that’s part of the fun, the fine tuning!
At the end of the day, the best gear is the gear you’ve got. It isn’t about spending a fortune on it all, it’s about just getting out there and getting after it!
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