millford to greymnouth

we had to wait 4 days in millford with mad storms! thunerstorms in millford are pretty cool though!!! luckily the guys at roscos kayaks were kind enough to give us a bed for the time we were there. they were great company and we had fun and drank lots of beer with them enjoying chilling out for a bit! the weather eventually abated a bit, so we snuck out to anita bay.

the swell was still big and from here we could sea a huge haze by the rocks opposite us, big waves crashing eek!

a slightly dramatic day:

the next day the swell was still big (forecast (6-7m!) but we decdded to give it a bash knowing the south side of big bay should give a more sheltered landing in the southerly swell. on the water the swell was truley big, we had to give the reefs off the headlands a 2km wide birth. some of the biggest waves i have ever seen were crashing heavily on the reefs! scary stuff! we gave em a wide birth and all was good! crossing what we thought was martins bay (actually turned out to be big bay!) we were met with the biggest line of breakers we have seen yet, we tuened our bows out to see and paddled out for a long time to get round the huge waves. James was about 150meters to my right ... when a FREAK HUGE house sized wave came in from my left ... this wave was honestly the biggest wave i have seen in my entire life, it was frikkin terrifying!!! the monster wave was coming at me and steeping as it came, turning that horrible dark colour the steeper and closer i got. i tuenerd my bow to the wave, looked at it and thought "This is the end!!!!' the adrenaline caused me to paddle like mad towards the monstrous wave .. as i reacher it i kept paddling hard, by bow pointing skywards and it seemed to take a long time to climb up this wave!! i made it up the wave and flew down the other side of it!! i heard a ROAR!!! as the wave broke behind me. to my horror another similar sized freak wave was coming, i paddled frantially at it, again clibing up the huge face looking at the sky and flying down the back of it. i was safe. but shit where was james??? i turned around and couldn't see any sign of him .... i was terrified at this moment he had been destroyed by the breaker.... i didn't know what to do.,... i nosed back into where i was very carefully keeping an eye out for big waves, i got as close as i dared but couldn't see him at all.

i decided the only thing i could do was keep paddling out round the reef as he might be ok. the huge swell rising up and down beneath me and crashing on the reefs to my right. i was alone and truely scared for a long 20 minutes!! eventually i caught a glimpse of james out in front of me and was immenlsey releeved!!

now the problem with today is that somehow our laminated map for the day had started to leak, and paddling 2km offshore it was hard to tell what headland was what headland with a half destroyed map. our planned landing of big bay, we had just crossed, and eneded up landing pasty big bay in a far more exposed spot!! james landed first, going capsizing, but appearing upright by the beech. i followed , a wave breaking on me capsizing me, rolling up i got hit by another wave, capsized , my helmet bashing rocks underneath me making me scared my boat was guna break! but i rolled up again and got to shore alright!

despite placing our tent well above yesterdays high tide mark, a freak spring tide combined with big swell caused the surf to come way above the expected mark, waking us with with a roaring wave coming through out tent! a midnight evacuation was dealt with!! the only thing we lost was a spoon!!

next day we launched through the surf both timing it well with a clean exit. and paddled on northwards, crossing what we thought was big bay. our map was still destroyed and timings and distances didn't seem to be adding up, but we put it down to paddling slow due to being tired form last nights midnight evacuation. we eventually labnded at what we thought was the gorge river.... but found no hut so that made us confused, but we decided maybe it was a walk away.

early the next morning on the water early we rounded the headland and found to our delight it was jacksons bay and we were 20km ahead of where we thought we were whoo!! the only negative was that we hadn't made it there last night to get the famous fish and chips from the cray pot!

spurred on by this extra 20km,. we put in a big 69km day landiong in the ohinemake river!

from here the weather was still good, so we paddled up to a bech just before gillipses beach. great calm conditions and fantastic views of the mountain ranges!

another day, another windless weather day... go go go! off we paddled and this time landed by the waitagango river through medium sized dumpers it alll went well.

the next day we werent too happy to see the swell had risen and rather than one line of dumpers there werfe now 3 lines of breaking surf with exceptionally big shore dumpers and an even narlyer line of big breaking dumnpers on the river bar!! Bugger!

we launched into the river. james was feeling very confident andwhilst i stopped on the river bank for a closer scout, james went straight out the river mouth. after getting my boat up, i looked over to james and saw him rolling up in the aftermath of a wave,,,, oh and he only had half a paddle! i saw him quickly turrn out to sea, and canoe like mad with this paddle over the big waves. he only just made it over one exceptionally big wave, capping as it reached him, but eventually made it safe out to sea. i spent aminute looking at the river bar, with a large dumping set coming in just after james made it out and was put off by it!! the waves were slightly smaller to the left of it so i decded to launch off the beech there. this i found out later was a bad decision!!! my first laucnch attempt, i got flipped upssidedowns by a big shore dumper, rolling quickly and with another bioggter one coming i jumped out of mny boat to drag it up and start again. attempt 2, the same thing happened!!! attempt 3 ... i paddled hard into a breaking dumper that broke over me, pinning me hard against the back deck, i wa still upright and pointing out to sea, attempted to get forwards momentum but didn't get enough anoth another one broke over me flipping me over upside down. rolling quickly i tried to tuen my boat out to sea... but couldnt quite in time got flipped, rolled up and was sidweways back on the beach dammit! the same things happened quite a few more times, having 8 horrendus rolls in total!! at one point i made it out through the shore dumperes to get backsurfes by the next line of breakers, ending up rolling, then getting backsurfed to shore, where i got out and staretd again. the final launch was probably the most horrific..... with the biggest dumper of the lot picking my boat up and 360 degrees flipping me upseide down head first onto the gravel beech! i got dragged down the gravel with heavy boat on top of me, paddle gone. i got out of my upseide down boat with difficulty, rescued my paddle and spent 10mintes restling with the heavy filled water and greval boat in the dumpers. it absolutely exhausted me!!! i was swearing ath the sea at this point and ready to give up. i sat on my boat for a few minutes in a bad mood. i had decided the river bar would have been easier after about my 4'th roll, but each time, due to the current i got washed further and frther down the beech, making it too hard to get back to the river mouth. i had been watching james paddling back and forth out there hoping he wouldn't come in to help me, it would be a narly landing and he woul dhave issues getting out again, lucily he didnt.

i eventually summoned the energy to give it 'one more' try, this time i managed to get through a smaller dumper, charge the next line of breakers between sets, and paddled so hard i was out of break and aching every muscle to get over the bigger back waves!!! james was whooping as i cleared the last waves!! i ate a chocolate bar and was suddenly happier! however, after paddling for an hour, i realized i was starving and knbackered and was never guna make it to hokita! we decided to do a short 30km day to greens beech.... landing wasn't too bad, big dumpers, i took one roll, but compared to this morning it was alright!

next day surf had picked up big time, 8 foot dumnpers out back. we were confidednt we could get out though timing it well between sets. launching side by side to the shore dumps, we paddled out to the breakers zone, a big one was about to break, i backpaddled and james forwaard paddled. james hit it right at breaking point and got backwards cartwheeled. i frantilly tried to gain forwards speen, but not enough and got backsurfed for a while! anyway we both charged hard in a lull after that and made it out over the big ones!

as we paddled towards hokita that day the surf seemed to get bigger and bigger and bigger! 10 feet at some points! eeeek!! we were getting scared of landing that day!! as we reached hokita, we found our propesed landing in the river bar looked bad, big waves a lkong way out!! paul caffyn was watching us from the side, rang our phone and let us knwo there was a better landing 200m down the beech. we nosed into have a llook, backpaddling as a set came through, paddling hard after the set and landing perfectly on the beech! we were secretly glad we had both nailed that landing in front of sea kayak legend paul caffyn!! he took us out for fish and chips and beer it was great!!!! then we spent the evening chilling out on the beech with a few beers.

surf had picked up again the next day! and the locals were intrigued to watch us get out through it! one local offered to give me a push through the shore dump, but before i got shout 'wait not yet!" he pushed me diagonally into a big dumper! bam i was upseide down!! i rolled, was facing the beech, so paddled back to re set up! the local exclaimed 'i though id killed you upseide down in that big wave like that!!' eventually we aluaghed without any other issues and made it out the back! we paddled fast to greymouth where we had a nice easy landing trhough the greay river bar and met paul who was waiting with some much loved food for us!! he kindly took us to the shops, resupplyed our food and took us back to his amazing house for the night!! we chilled out in his swimming pool drinking beer and it was really great!!