Logjammed

John Wallace, a 56-year-old agronomist, works for a dairy farm in the Canterbury Plains. He’s got a wife named Sharon and three boys, Angus, Louis and Joe, aged 16, 14 and 10. Wallace used to say that his only claim to fame is that he lives in a house — a four-bedroom in Mayfair — that was built by the granddad of All Black captain Richie McCaw. But now, he’s got another story to tell. On January 23, after crashing his jetboat, Wallace got stuck in the middle of the roaring Rangitata River and was forced to spend a harrowing night on some logs. Here’s an hour-by-hour account of how he got himself into this mess and how he got back out again.

Wallace is spending the weekend at the Rangitata South River Reserve motorcamp, close to the mouth of the river. There’s good fishing to be had, salmon mostly but also some brown and rainbow trout. This is not Wallace’s first