Canoe Club Championships

Harry, Charlotte, Ulysse (from France) and Nic (from Denmark) left from Parnell, where we all live, for the Canoe Club Championships in Kawerau (a river east of Rotorua). We arrived at a large hall with a kitchen, freezer room and dorms for us all. The five of us were in one room and we headed to bed soon after. It was an early start the next morning, getting the kayaks and rafts ready to go. For the weekend, we were split into teams and each team could come up with their own theme. My team were thugs so we stayed in costume, but not in character, all weekend. The first events of the weekend were the kayak time trial and boatacross. The time trial is simply the fastest time and the boatacross is four kayaks at a time racing to one rock. These races were very exciting to watch but I wasn’t able to kayak, unfortunately. The raft time trial was next as a team event. The thugs did struggle a small bit with working in unison but we had great team spirit! Once these activities were finished we put the boats away and headed off in the university van in search of a waterfall.

We had to get a permit to enter the park where the waterfall was and set off as a group of 16. We followed the gorgeous clear water till we found a spectacular waterfall emerging from a hole in the cliff face. The rock is pourous so the river disappears into the rock further upstream and reappears here. Two of the more experienced kayakers with us wanted to run up the river to see if they could kayak it on Sunday. They were gone for a while and one of them was a driver (Joe, who never made it to the Abel Tasman) so I was sent to run after them. I ran for about 20min before I decided I must have passed them and turned back. I started whistling and eventually they whistled back and we found each other. During my search, I saw some stunning falls and could see where the river disappears. As I was rather warm and the water was so clear I decided to have a quick swim on my way back before we drove to the local hot pools.

These hot pools are free to the public and run by the local saw mill. As a consequence of them being free I didn’t think they were the most hygienic (the smell of sulphur didn’t help) but the hot water was relaxing and, ultimately, I felt better for it. Some of organisers took on the role of chef for the evening, cooking dinner for everyone. This involved barbequing sausages but this was a little too tricky for one of the chefs and he managed to set off the smoke alarm (despite barbequing outside). We all had to evacuate and not one but two fire engines came as the building was directly connected to the station. They weren’t too pleased but we gave them some hot dogs so I think that helped. There is a brand of beer here called Tui which have trivia questions on the lids. Harry picked up two of the lids and asked me the questions, as they were related to rugby. These questions were terribly obscure, one was asking for the score in a provincial final back in 2012 and the other what the nickname of an ex rugby player was. I had no idea of either answer but I managed to memorise them for long enough so that when Charlotte asked me the same questions about half an hour later I was able to answer in such a way that she believed me! It helped that Harry played along, at least for 24 hours when he revealed our little secret.

Sunday began with raft racing. Two rafts on the river going head to head. Knock out style. The thugs won the first race by shear team work, sorting out our differences from the day before. In the second race, we were being soundly beaten but they messed up their line on the final bend and we took them on the inside to make the semi-finals. Due to the numbers, we had three boats in our semi. Unfortunately, we ended up being sandwiched and finished in third but we kept our spirits high throughout! Next up was a dry land team relay. This involved running with a paddle balanced on your hand, throwing a hoop over a helmet, throwing a safety rope over a boat and pulling someone in a boat, switching life jackets at each step. We finished second in our heat to qualify for the final. In the first final, there was some argument as to who had won (photo finish) so it was rerun between the top two teams. Thankfully we were one of those teams and in the second final we ran out clear winners.

The final event was the endurance kayak where you kayak down and then run back up and see how many runs you can do. As there was no safety on the river I couldn’t do this event. Instead, Charlotte, Harry and I went to the hot pools. After all activities were finished there was a prize giving where the Thugs won the prize for the best spirit and I won a t-shirt. Overall, I had a great weekend, even though I have yet to kayak on white water, and I am hooked on raft racing.

You can see all the photos and videos from the weekend here.