Dreaming of Whitewater: Two Day Whitcombe

Got a phone call on Saturday asking if I was keen for an Upper Whitcombe. After thinking about it for a few seconds, re-living peoples' recent adventures up there, I was keen to give it a go. The weather forecast looked good for a Monday/Tuesday mission. Sunday night was going to see me rally with Jess and Soph down to the Coast.

After a dinner cooking accident and a visit to the hospital, I was left quite uncommitted. I chopped the top of my finger off with a mandolin, blood went everywhere and my finger went into dinner. The thing stopping me from pulling out of the trip was Mick Hopkinson's words in the back of my mind; "When I was in India I had a dysentery the entire Dudh Kosi trip." I would have felt soft if I let a bit of blood stop me from going. So after a quick lie about the currency of my tetanus and a couple of waterproof dressings we were off.

We meet up with Barny, Jordy and Krissy and rallied to the heli pad.

Dando (the chopper pilot) was a bit F*#ked off. His oil cap got lost and he had a sling break on him when taking some rafters up the Hoki. When the sling broke, the load dropped onto rocks from about 20 metres up, breaking three raft paddles, three Peli cases and one satellite phone.

We finally got to the put-in at 12.30pm. From there Barny, Jordy and I made good progress and got to Price Flat Hut at 3pm. Some awesome whitewater and beautiful scenery in a very amazing place. Lots of slips and a couple of mank rapids but mostly clean read and run whitewater.

The second day saw Matt Coles and Ari Walker dropped off around 10am, with Krissy flying back out on Dando's return journey with all our overnight gear. The arrival of the two guys took the total up to 7 for on the water.

Some great lines and bit of extra water ment for a fast trip through the Lower Prices Gorge.