We had just gone live with the website and were getting itchy feet after sitting behind computers non stop getting the last of the details ironed out.
It was Bruce's birthday so we had a good excuse to get out there. The weather had been good all morning but it was evident that rain and wind was coming. We checked the Upper Waimakariri- Springfield camera and could see that if we didn't go now we would be in for a wet ride as the weather front was making its way downstream.
We put the boat in at the Waimak SH1 ramp and headed off. Nigel driving, Toni navigating and Bruce relaxing in the back taking the odd photo.
Although the river had been running just shy of 300 cubes a couple of days before, it had dropped to about 70 and was a beautiful blue providing us with some good boating.
We ran up to the pylons with no trouble and enjoyed a couple of interesting sections including a funky bend in the braid that had us driving down river to go upstream.
As we were moving up and the rain was moving down, it didn't take long until we were getting wet and made the call to turn around. The run downstream gave us a hard to read river. The way the light was shining through the grey clouds made for a grey looking river that seamlessly merged into grey banks.
We made it down with no issues and were on the trailer with dry feet and dry heads. As always the Holy Grail of rivers showed us a good time and we will be looking forward to getting out there again.
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