A Wild New Year
This time would be a bit different as Paul had managed to jimmy up some Alpacka packrafts to take down the Waiau River. Work commitments meant that Jahn couldn’t make it, so Max took his place to join Piet, Paul and me.
We had only three days to play with as we all had different schedules, so the plan was to get picked up the day after New Year’s Day down at Te Waiotukapiti Hut. Meeting at Derek’s helipad in Murupara in the evening, we loaded up the Jet Ranger and were soon landing at the top of the Waiau, with me still feeling pretty queasy from a bout of food poisoning I’d had for the past few days.
We set up camp as the chopper disappeared into the mist and then had a
