Pack and ride
Clarence for two days.
On day three Stones had planned to ride the scree slopes on Dillon Cone but in Dean Parker’s words ‘‘with the risk outweighing the potential number of revolutions’’ it was decided not to stop.
By day four they’d paddled past so many scree slopes that Stones’ ‘‘froth factor’’ was at an all-time high.
This time they stopped and carved out some new lines on one of the faces.
On day five they hit the first set of rapids, dubbed Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum, that managed to oust everyone from their boats.
Of course with the earthquake came a lot of changes to the landscape and one of the most spectacular was the creation of a lake the crew stumbled across after paddling through Saw Tooth Gorge.
Stones described that experience as astonishing but of course once they crossed it they had to negotiate the series of rapids that had dammed up the lake.
With ‘‘house-sized’’ boulders in there Stones said it definitely raised the pucker factor.
By day six with the ‘‘rigging and derigging’’ down to a fine art the crew set off on the final ride through Bluff Station to the finish line at Kekerengu.
What they thought would be and easy 50km at the end ended up being a 2000m climb.
Stones said the earthquake changed the route of their journey but it was interesting heading down the Clarence.
‘‘The road was pretty fresh; that area got hammered by the earthquake. It had a big impact on where we ended up going.’’
But apart from the one rapid where they all came out there were no major incidents.
‘‘In that kind of environment you want to be within your limits. So there was no going beyond 100 per cent of our abilities.’’
The planning took a year and Stones said it was surprising the amount of time it took.
‘‘It was a whole new level of commitment and time.’’
He said mostly it was the logistics of five people and all that equipment that took the most work. And of course it was an adventure that kept giving.
The final short film that Simon Waterhouse put together from his footage, The Waiau-Toa Odyssey a Journey by Bike and Packraft, won best New Zealand-made film at the New Zealand Mountain Film Festival and of course there were premieres to attend and presentations to give.
Stones said the same crew were planning another trip this year but