Days were getting shorter and noticeably colder. The official packrafting season had been closed for Packrafting Queenstown for a few weeks at least but a random road trip presented an opportunity for Jeremy, Charl and myself to rally up in Picton to crow bar in a sneaky last trip into the Taipo river as the curtain call to an incredible paddling season.
As is typical for me, the off season had brought in a pivot into TV/Film work for a few months. This time , both Jeremy and Charl had ended up being roped into helping out with a production too. As the various productions we worked on finished, a plethora of hired equipment needed returning to all over the motu. Charl finished dropping some stuff in Christchurch and Jeremy and I turned a 1 man job into a 2 man job and dropped some special effect kit off in Wellington.
Some big days preceded the trios reunion on the Taipo river. 1 consective 12-18 hour work days culminating with meeting outside a library at 1am saw Jez and I reunited, then a further few hours drive down the coast saw us packing our bags in a lay-by with Charl. Time for one last little hurrah for the season!
The Taipo had been on my list for a long time. The problem was that it was so far away from Queenstown, it was hard to make logisitics work…. truth be told logistics were hard this time too, but we gleefully ignored that and hiked along the 4wd track that took us into our beds for the night in the Taipo valley.
I’d heard good things about the paddle, but nothing about the mining operation that greeted us as we neared the hut. Not quite the pristine wilderness I’d anticipated, but we were pleased to have found the hut empty and spirits high as we unsoldered our bags for the day. Speaking of spirits, no “Last little Hurrah” would be complete without a little whiskey my boys…. only it wasn’t a little whiskey and my poor body knew it the next morning.
The hike upstream turned more rugged and remote as we left the mining behind thankfully and only bird song and the thumping of my pulse in my dusty ears interrupted our chatter. Charl, who sensibly rarely drinks to excess, was charging up the valley. I, who had bravely elected to drink Charl’s share of the whiskey, sweated and suffered up the valley behind him.
Our objective was to get above the gorge and see what we found. The Taipo, we were told, gets harder the higher you go. This makes for excellent packrafting as you can scout as you hike and then start paddling when you first come across a rapid that turns your pants brown. We however, found the river in predictably low flows for the time of year and it seemed no amount of “One more corner” would help us find sufficient flows to justify the additional work. Plus every footstep took us further away from the vehicles and would make the 7 hour drive ahead of us more gruelling.
We eventually elected to put on around 3pm and worked our way down through slightly manly boulder gardens, dreaming as we scraped over rocks of what the river might look like with 5 more cumec. Hell 10 more cumec would be great too. But even in the less than perfect condition, you cold easily see what the hype was about with the Taipo. Comparable to the Wairaurahiri in terms of its continuous nature and picturesque lower gorge was really really special.
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