We had a great group of five for a Sunday morning beginners packraft paddle. The river had a great flow at 17 cubic metres, but the water was pretty cold! After a fairly smooth car shuttle ride, we had a briefing at the confluence of the Akatarawa and Upper Hutt Rivers and then jumped in. … Read more
INTRODUCTION Following the great success of the first WTMC packrafting instruction course our chief-guide Richard organised a second one – which helped to alleviate our feelings of envy. Packrafting is a very exciting way to travel down a river by using a special inflatable kayak weighing in at just over 2 kg and folding to … Read more
What a lark! Hooning down the Tararua rivers in a 1.6 kg inflatable dinghy—including all the kit (floatation device (PFD) and paddle). Welcome to the wonderful world of packrafting! Having had a very harebrained thought to do just the same thing by myself a few years ago, except with questionable gear, no training and no … Read more
Noel started the course of with the question “Who has ever had to cross a river?” The strong take-home message for the day was that river safety was mostly about the decisions made before entering any river, particularly whether to cross or not. There were 16 course attendees including the club members. Many were walking … Read more
This course was a first for the Club. Packrafting is a relatively new outdoor activity in NZ and while a few members had some limited experience, none had any formal training. As part of the schedule planning Richard House managed to get Packrafting NZ from Expedition X Ltd, based in Te Anau, to come up … Read more