2009

2009 was a big year for me and will be a tough one to beat. I was lucky enough to travel through 10 different countries over 4 different continents. 2009 started with a bang in Chile. We brought in the New Year Chilean style not going out till 2.30 am and partied until it got light. I spent six weeks in Chile and Argentina starting in Santiago and travelling and boating our way south all the way to Coyhaique. Chile and Argentina are beautiful countries with amazing Rios.

Rio Palguin

Highlights of this trip for me include the Rio Claro, Rio Fuy, Rio Palguin and of course the incredible Futalafu. Chile is definitely an awesome boating destination and with the amount of planned dams if your thinking about going you should make it sooner rather than later.

Inferno Canyon - Futalafu

Next it was back to New Zealand and back to work spending 18 days on a canoe expedition on the Clarence River. It was a great time of year with fine weather most of the time with a little bit of rain to keep the water level up and provide us with an afternoon entertainment of watching a flash flood in a side stream. The Clarence is a great trip and I was surprised at the huge gorges that you don’t usually find in New Zealand’s rivers.

Clarence River

After leaving the field in New Zealand I boarded the plane the next day and flew to Australia for more work. This time it was a 40 day canoe expedition in the Kimberly on the Drysdale River. This is an amazing expedition; we flew into the Drysdale Station in bush planes fully loaded with 40 days worth of food and equipment. Luckily however the canoes were already in there as you can drive in there in the dry season. As you can image packing 40 days worth of gear into canoes and heading off down a monsoon river full of trees and crocs with complete beginners is no small feat.

Drysdale River

However with a bit of sweat and struggling we did manage to set off and make it work for the next 40 days. The Drysdale is an incredible river and very remote, we didn’t see another person for forty days. The Kimberly is a harsh and amazing area with a lot of wildlife and allot of untouched aboriginal sacred sites and paintings.

Drysdale Local

The river itself defines expedition canoeing with not many runnable rapids and a lot of very technical lining and portaging. Also a lot of just walking the canoes down the river on very slippery rocks that make you feel like you're wearing roller skates; this ultimately results in very bruised shins and feet.

Where to next?

Lining?

Monsoon hits camp

It really is a trip you have to do to really comprehend, there is definitely moments that you have to learn to laugh instead of cry.

Evening Campfire

After working for 2 months straight it was definitely time to take a break and unwind and what better way to do that than head to Cali in spring time and go kayaking. This was my second season boating in Cali and I managed to get in a lot of new runs as well as some of the old favourites.

Skyscraper Rapid - South Silver

 I love boating in California with the warm weather, huge granite slides and plenty of partying that is almost as epic as the boating.

Bald Rock

Unfortunately I had to leave Cali after only a month to go back to work and as always I was left knowing that I needed to return to Cali as there are so many rivers I still want to do

University Falls

I then headed to Alaska for 2 contracts both a month long with 2 week s of hiking and 2 weeks sea kayaking. Alaska is an awesome place and I was blown away by the beautiful scenery and wildlife.

Home

Nellie Juan Glacier

Sunset

Hiking

I finished up my time in the States in the South East with 6 weeks of kayaking. It was a great season in the south east with a lot of rain that meant that we were able to get on a lot of rivers that don’t run that often.

Horse Pasture

Photo - Curt Joyce

The highlight however was finishing the Green Race in one piece and managing to come in 3rd in the women’s short boat category. Which I was pretty happy with for my first time racing. Who know maybe next year I will be back with a long boat....

Gorilla - Green Narrows

Photo - Curt Joyce

The day after the Green Race I managed to somewhat organise my life and pack my bags to fly out to Africa the next day. First of all I spent 3 weeks on the White Nile in Uganda. It is a fun river and it was great to do a very different style of kayaking, big volume in a play boat instead of creeking.

Nile Special

Photo - Nini Bondhus

Kalagala - White Nile

Photo - Nini Bondhus

 I then headed to Zambia to paddle the Zambezi River. The Zambezi is an awesome river with some huge rapids. The highlight of my time there was doing a multi day trip starting at Victoria Falls and going all the way through to Lake Kariba.

Victoria Falls

Photo - Nini Bondhus

Zambezi

Photo - Matej Fabianek

Watch out for the Hippos!

Photo - Matej Fabianek

 I also travelled through Zimbabwe and went to Botswana to do a safari in the Chobe National park. After 4 weeks in Zambia it was time to get back on the plane and head back to New Zealand. It’s great to be home and I am lucky enough to have a month off to go kayaking before I have to go back to work..............................

Photo - Nini Bondhus