Tramper survives raging river
Tramper Kayes Chu says she feels lucky to still be alive after being swept down a Canterbury river that snow melt had transformed into a raging torrent.
The 27-year-old, who works on an orchard in Alexandra, wanted to see how far she could walk along Te Araroa trail over eight weeks.
The tramping route stretches about 3000 kilometres from Cape Reinga to Bluff. The keen tramper set off alone from Bluff on October 5, recording her journey on a Facebook page for her friends and family to track her progress.
Everything was going well until Chu set out from Royal Hut in the Two Thumb ranges just east of Lake Tekapo on November 11.
Her diary entry for her social media followers recorded her chilling experience that day.
‘‘The most beautiful thing that has ever happened to me . . . for the past 27 years is that I’m alive today,’’ she wrote.
Chu spent 30 minutes trying to find a suitable spot to cross Forest Creek, which had been transformed into a raging torrent by melted snow.
‘‘I started to get worried and panicked . . . I told myself ‘there must be a way, there must be a way’.’’
Chu settled on a spot to cross soon after and prepared herself, putting her sleeping bag in a plastic bag, her cellphone in a zip-lock bag and clipping her personal locator beacon (PLB) to her belt.
‘‘When I had crossed just [a third] of it, I started to feel I was about to lose my footing. ‘One step at a time’, I kept telling myself, ‘I am strong I can do this’.’’
But as Chu went to take another step the river swept her away.
‘‘The river took me. [The] next moment, I was part of the raging current downstream. It happened within a millisecond. All I could see at my eye level was turquoise water, rocks and white water.’’
Chu struggled to keep her head above water, and as her body was slammed into rocks she desperately tried to grab onto anything she could find.
‘‘I was so close to the river bed. I tried to grab whatever I could. Slippery rocks. My hands slipped. I felt so powerless in the water. I tried and tried. Here came another bigger rock. I tried to turn sideways to grab it. It was so difficult to turn, but I got it.’’
Chu mustered enough strength to get herself out of the water and onto the shore of the island. She believed the raging torrent had pulled her about 15 metres downstream.
‘‘I felt so exhausted from fighting in the river. My mind went completely blank.’’
Chu then started to feel pain in her left ankle and broke down.
Her phone had been drenched and would not turn on. She still had her PLB, and after some hesitancy she decided to activate it.
Chu tied her bright orange pack cover to her walking pole ready to alert a rescue chopper if it got near. About an hour later, she heard the Westpac Rescue chopper approaching.
‘‘What a relief to hear the chopper, not the river any more. I saw one man in red walking towards me. He smiled at me. ‘It’s all right, I got you, I got you,’ he was saying.’’
Westpac Rescue crew member Tom Hyland said the ‘‘sheer relief and gratitude expressed by [Chu]’’ was enough to make the job ‘‘memorable’’.
‘‘She was quite banged up [with a] soaking wet pack and broken hiking poles . . . . [I’m] so glad she had a PLB.’’
While Chu is still ‘‘traumatised’’ from the experience, she is determined to head back onto Te Araroa trail once she has finished working over summer.
But she said she may need some time to build up the confidence to take on another river crossing.