It was a beautiful analogy. My brother and his two boys, my kids and wife, reuniting after more than a year at the Hanmer Springs hot pools the day before our seven-day rafting adventure on the Waiau-Toa (Clarence River). Then my wife suggesting we get slide tickets for the kids before sneaking herself inadvertently to the top of the largest slide. It wasn't until we exited at breakneck speed into the vortex that she realised we'd taken a different path to the one she had in mind – where the kids had looped around once, we spun three, four, five times before being sucked down the exit chute.
Anything the Waiau-Toa had to throw at us would be child's play after that. Or so we thought ...
Our wrestle with the Waiau-Toa begins just over Jack's Pass where the Acheron meets the Clarence. This is our put-in spot. Our packing ramp. Our training ground. Our last minute check point and the place we kiss goodbye to the world, to technology, to our cars, to stonegrills and to mince pies and barista coffee. From here on in it is all down to us, for the next seven days and 180km, to our destination in the South Pacific Ocean.
Luckily, Ben Judge, who runs Clarence River Rafting, had his best guides ready to ease us into our river adventure. Between them GG and Libby are super experienced and swiftly show us the ropes. Libby is a quiet unassuming girl with exceptional rapid-reading skills and such a calm personality she just makes you want to do yoga, or meditation, or both. GG has one eye on the clouds, one on the river and a sixth sense that reads the situation like she was born with it in her destiny. They quickly instill confidence with their river knowledge, but they also leap straight on to our wavelength.
Our crew consists of five kids under 12, Remi, a 10-month old Kelpie pup, and three adults. None of us have rafting experience, but we make up for it in enthusiasm. That would be a bad combination without Libby and GG.
And so we head off into the Clarence River blissfully unaware that Cyclone Debbie is giving us the glad eye. For four days we bathe in the brilliance of being off the grid. We lose track of time. Daylight savings shifts beneath us with its head bowed in shame, shame that the sunrise and the sunset are no longer signal enough.
We wake. We drop the tents. We try to find the kids' shoes. We eat breakfast. We try to find the kids' shoes. We pack the raft. We agree to go barefeet. We raft the day away. We paddle a lot more than you might expect. We find a beach. We make camp. The kids make a new fort. GG makes something extraordinary out of twigs, berries and bananas. We dine on it and supplement it with rehydrated food and watch the stars twinkle overhead.
Day five and we are jolted out of our sleep by an M4.2 at 10km – as guessed by GG who had been on this very river when the M7.8 struck near Kaikoura. We became instantly alert and even moreso when Cyclone Debbie begins her lashings. The first squall dumps so much rain that we watch as sodden trees are taken completely out by falling rock. Soon, constant rockfall joins our journey as the guides do their best to navigate the best routes through such an eliveneved landscape. And that is what it seems has become the norm along the Clarence River ... three gorges increasingly unsettled, but each beautifully crafted by the arm wrestle of tectonic plates. As fitting an analogy as the brawl between modern life and that of a life worth living. I know where I would rather be.
Go chase your own adventure and take your family with you ... you owe it to them.
Derek
PS Want to copy our journey? We highly recommend you do ... here's how.
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