Canoeing in Costa Rica, kayaking Doubtful Sound, and now rafting down the Clarence: you would think that from my vacation trends that I would be some kind of floating object enthusiast. I am not, however: I merely enjoy pain.
This is The Long Post, detailing the start of our five-day rafting trip down the Clarence River and all the hijinks, rain, and sandfly bites that followed.
We were due to leave Christchurch late Sunday morning, and we had what we assumed was going to be our last warm breakfast for several days. We went with my host family to a nearby cafe which featured old Japanese comics and even had a hidden door to the kitchen behind a bookshelf. I ordered Feijoa juice, which is pronounced feh-jo-ah and not fei-jwa like I fanciliy thought it was. It was insanely sweet.
After breakfast, we parted ways with the girls, who were headed back up to Auckland. We awaited our chariot: a giant van driven by a kind kiwi from Clarence River Rafting, which was then off to gather ten more people from Christchurch airport. Hopefully I wouldn’t be calling everyone “hey you,” “birthday lady,” or “British guy” for very long. I had a lot of memorizing to do.
An hour outside of Christchurch, we descended upon a grocery store to pick up one metric ton of booze and other snacks. Hours of paddling and booze, sounds like a perfect recipe.
Holiday homes and hot springs in Hanmer Springs
We had not gone to Hanmner Springs on our previous visit to New Zealand because it had been relatively out of the way for us. It’s about an hour northwest of Kaikoura and the kind folks at Clarence River Rafting had reserved two holiday homes for our very large party as we would be leaving early the next morning on our rafting trip.
Hanmer Springs, as a town, is similar to other tourist towns: worn homes surrounded by ramshackle fences and sprawling yards. Most people visit to use the numerous hot springs dotted around the countryside and then leave after a few fond days of merriment.
The two homes were kitty corner: one home featured more bedrooms, a larger den, and a treehouse where someone may or may not have been murdered. The other home had a rec room complete with a pool table and ping-pong table. There was a scramble for bedrooms and sleeping arrangements for the various parties. We settled on a room with a dubious bunk bed which shook if you moved too much. Rhett thought logically this was the best place for him to sleep and called top bunk and his dad thought sleeping beneath him would be a safe idea.
We settled in and got ready to go to the hot springs in the town. The hot springs featured a variety of pools ranging in temperature from hot to scalding lava, and some of them smelled pretty heavily of sulphur. I’d actually never been to a hot springs before and have a general dislike of hot tubs and saunas because the water is hot and it touches you, but the springs with jets in them were nice. In between hot springs we floated down the lazy river to cool off.
We figured the hot springs would be better in a few days after we’ve been floating down a river for five days, sore and smelly…
After dinner, we went back to the homes to lose badly at pool (curse you, geometry!) and ping-pong (or is it table tennis?). One of our party members discovered that the ping-pong tables were not structurally sound and collapsed it in a fit of intense ping-pong fervor…on top of his opponent.
Day one
There were no bunk bed-induced fatalities overnight, which was good even if it was improbable. We awakened to a simple breakfast amidst the chaos of preparation for our five day rafting trip. The guides gave us brief instructions on what to pack and how to pack it – couples should take a large dry bag, and we could share a smaller dry bag as our on-river daypack.
Packing the large dry bag was like stuffing your clothing and other necessities into a long sausage casing. I used my powers of folding and packing I gained from reading Marie Kondo to craftily fold our precious few days’ worth of river and camp clothing. Every time I reached in, I was like my cat stealthily eating from the dog’s giant food bag: entire body in, frantic scrabbling, maybe some crunching, and then worming my way out in a shameful fashion.
We rolled and strapped our dry pack and returned our colorful, squishy sausage to the van with the other packs. Its name was Arghhhh, which would be memorable due to the fact that we’d probably be making the same noise as we were unloading the boats in the evening.
The launch area was about an hour outside of Hanmer Springs, winding and bumping up a gravel mountain road. We arrived to four boats: three in the water and one up on the gravelly shore.
We were introduced to our guides: Clinton, Rita, George, and Reed. They handed out additional gear: life vests, helmets, and an 80s rainbow of polypro socks, long johns, shirts, and then a bunch of hospital blue splash gear. It was summer, but based on our last chillly boating adventure, I thought it would be wise to take some anyway. Rhett picked out a fabulous pink set and I chose extreme rainbow stripes. We were incredibly attractive.
Rafting 101
We gathered round for our basic intro to rafting. We would have two boats of four and one boat of six, one gear boat, and one guide per boat. The boats of four people were also loaded with some gear.
- Don’t sit on the middle inflatable support beam- you want to sit on the side of the boat so it’s easier to lean in and hang on and paddle
- Keep one of your feet under something for stability – like the row in front of you
- Sometimes you were legally required to wear your helmet. Most of the time you weren’t.
- There’s no cell phone reception on the river (yes! Goodbye emails)
- Watch out for the willows along the banks – they like to remove people from boats
- You are probably going to be very wet all the time – or at least your shoes will never dry
- If you fall out of the boat, listen to the guides. Don’t swim towards the willows
- If the guides say to hold on, listen to the guides
- Listen to the guides
After our intro, we suited up and helped pack up the boats. The gear boat was a colorful mountain which was somehow both floating and was rowed by one of our guides.
Where we were entering the water, the Clarence was gravelly and cold and muddy. I had gotten a pair of nice water shoes from Amazon prior to departure which had a thick sole and would dry quickly. Rhett chose a pair of old tennis shoes despite my repeat insistence that he should get some water shoes. When tennis shoes get wet, it’s basically like your foot is in a soggy sad waffle. Which smells.
I decided there was no being timid about getting anything wet since we would be in and around the river every day for five days. I splashed in with no regrets. Immediately tiny rocks flooded my shoes through the holes, and Rhett’s tennis shoes became soggy waffles. Excellent. We picked our seats at the front of the boat with Rhett’s parents and Clinton would be our guide for the day.
Clinton has been rafting the Clarence for a long time and knew every nook and cranny of the Clarence and the many groups that run it. His knowledge of the flora and fauna were unparalleled and he had many tales to tell.
He told us about the eels: there are eels in the Clarence – freshwater eels. They can get to be big and are pretty widespread around New Zealand. I’ve seen them in the Avon in Christchurch. Generally they are indifferent to our fleshy human legs, but tend to get bitey in the rain. Sometimes they bit hard enough to draw blood – and they have in the past. Pro tip: don’t piss off the eels.
The water in the Clarence is potable. Each boat had a cup and you could dip it in to drink whenever you needed. It seemed unreal that the water could be so trustworthy, even when muddy, but it was deliciously fresh and nobody got sick from it.
We floated down the river, paddling and going down a few rapids and encountered a few groups – including one group of canoeists who were very dedicated to leaving no trace. They were very serious about no trace: they kept a tube that people would poop in instead of digging a trench. Our guides wanted to protect the environment but thankfully nobody in our group was that extreme!
Shortly before lunch, one of the boats (Reed’s) became stuck on a rock and nearly overturned, and its passengers had to carry it over the rocks to a more suitable entry point. What have we signed up for? I knew this would surely be my clumsy fate.
Lunch was a cold and hearty meal around a scenic bend in the river.
Everyone had somehow managed to hold their pee til this point, perhaps out of trepidation of being the first person to have to pee on the trip. This location’s bathroom was tall grass and thorns set back from the large rocks.
As we traipsed through the tall grass to the ladies’ grass, I tried to think of the last time I peed outside, or even the last time I peed that wasn’t on a Western toilet. For the record, I couldn’t recall the outside peeing, but the last squatty potty I used was in Japan in Shinjuku station while drunk with a precious Ebisu beer in my hand. In a Halloween costume. Not gross.
New Zealand is full of ancient ferns and wonderful things and I half wondered if a raptor would come out of the tall grass as I was stomping the grass flat. No raptors emerged, much to my chagrin.
After lunch, we loaded up the boats and paddled down the river to camp. We passed through a beautiful bouldery canyon slightly before our campsite, and there were no more near-tipping incidents from any boat.
Tentmaster Camp
Before we get on to the campmaking business, allow me to get this joke out of the way:
We busied ourselves unloading the boats and various gear. We had a small two-person tent and a tarp and now had to figure out how to put up said tent and tarp. The area I chose was slightly above the rest of the ground in the camp and, as we discovered with our bare legs, full of calf-high pokey thorny plants. Excellently chosen.
After derping around with our tent for a bit, Clinton came over and pointed out that the instructions were on the inside of a little weird flap which was difficult to notice. Oh. We’d done half of it correctly if slowly already.
Emerging from thornycamp, we found that the guides had already set up a cook fire, a circle of chairs, and dinner was well on its way.
The guides kept cleverly frozen our meals for the trip – so the meats were placed in deep freeze and would eventually be thawed for eating later in the trip. We cracked into the seemingly infinite supply of wine and dinner was a delicious daal and cabbage.
I thought maybe I could hold it for five days, but I had finally reached a point in the trip where I had to poo. Reed had dug a trench back behind a tree in a tall grass meadow (raptors again?). You took a shovel and the bag of toilet paper back when you went to the trench, and made sure to cover it up and return the shovel so the next person could use it. If the shovel was gone, don’t go back!
It truly was a poo with a view – the setting sun striking a nearby mountain as I used the trench. Ok, maybe the trench wasn’t so bad after all!
I went to bed early with a death headache, but tomorrow promised to be a day of adventure, rapids, and more tent puns.
