Thought I would let you know about the Rangitikei trip I did recently.
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I flew in with Brian (Goodwin) to the Otama[-teanui] Stream on Saturday (3 March) with the plan to raft down the river back to where my Vitara was parked by the bridge on the Taihape – Napier road. I allowed myself four days for the trip but was happy if I needed another day. I hadn’t done that stretch before and flying up the valley with Brian many of the rapids sure looked lumpy with a lot of boulders showing because of the very low river level.
Fortunately as it happened, I had decided to take my Water Strider floatboat instead of my Incept W33S raft, which turned out to be the right decision because with the river so low I had to portage a few of the rapids and I would never have got the 33 down through the boulders, and being by myself I wouldn’t have been able to lift it over them.
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Prior to this trip I have used the Strider floatboat a lot, fishing in the central lakes and rivers that feed them. It’s a great bit of equipment, so good in fact that I have never used my W33, actually its never even been in the water, just gathers dust in the shed!
I set up camp by the Otama[-teanui] then fished later on the Saturday getting a couple of decent size trout that were returned.
After packing up camp on Sunday I finally hit the river about 10.00am.
The weather was beautiful, so hot my wet suit and life jacket got to be uncomfortable, with regular splashes of river water keeping me reasonably cool.
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I must admit I was a bit surprised at the size of some of the rapids, the low water made them into very long rock strewn obstacles with the water rushing through the gaps changing the direction of the runs dramatically. The maneuverability of the Strider is wonderful and it wasn’t too difficult to line up the runs most every time. Not every time I have to admit, and I got it wrong quite a few times.
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In most cases if I got stuck on the rocks it was just a matter of sticking my legs down into the water and pushing off the rocks, then I was away again.
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Some of the rapids had fairly large drops at the bottom of them and they were exhilarating, that’s providing I had got lined up at the top first, if I didn’t then a little bit of skill and a hell of a lot of luck got me through on most occasions.
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As you know there are some really long rapids with fairly steep gradients and because of the low water level quite a few had too many boulders to let even the Strider get through and so I would drag it across the top and around the side of the rocks, it seems really hard on it but thankfully in most cases the fabric stayed wet so for all the bumping across stones, dragging over and ricocheting off boulders the boat never had a serious mark on the fabric at the end of the four days. I was really impressed - seriously impressed, because it took some big knocks. I had taken the repair kit, but thankfully it wasn’t needed.
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The only problem I developed was on the fourth day when the rivet securing the blade onto the shaft of one of the oars sheared off after hitting a rock allowing the blade would twist which caused a bit of a problem down some of the rapids. Fortunately the worst of the rapids were behind me by the time that happened so I was able to negotiate them with some reasonable control until I would hit something with the blade again then it was anyone’s guess where I would end up. I’m going to fit an extra rivet into each blade just as an insurance in future. But given the impact those oars took they did remarkably well to last as long as they did.
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Considering I had all my camping gear, food, clothes, boots, fishing gear and rifle it had a hefty load on it, maybe that helped it in the bigger rapids, I’m not sure, it would be interesting to have done them empty to see if there was any difference in its performance. Irrespective it was brilliant and I can’t speak highly enough of its capability.
For the whole trip I ended up only flipping it twice, once with me in it, and once as I was lowering it down a nasty rapid. I had all my gear in two of your Incept 80 litre dry bags and nothing got wet at any time, even after being submerged on the two occasions, a great set up all round.
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The weather stayed perfect for the four days and I got back to the road bridge about 3.00pm Tuesday so that worked out about 17 hours on the water to complete the trip. Working it out on my electronic map it looks to be about 36km and I must admit it was a bit tougher than I thought it would be, much of it I think was caused by the low river level. Nevertheless it was a great trip and that Incept Water Strider is brilliant.
Bill Grice
Wanganui NZ 