Wendy: Two days after starting antibiotics and I'm back to new! I'm a little calorie deprived, since I haven't eaten food in 8 days, but I'm so sick of staying in bed that I'm jonesing to boat. Today's plan is to boat the Mohaka. A quick consult with the map shows that this river is 200 km away from the town we are starting from, and that we have a choice of ways to get there. Option one: the highway, a little bit longer in miles and kinda boring; or Option two: a 200 km gravel road. Of course we choose option two, and it takes many many many hours to get there. To add insult to injury, the shuttle for the river is another 60km on the gravel road, making for about 11 hours of total driving time just to do one silly run! Let's just say we were getting a bit loopy from all the driving...
We have to call a farmer to get permission to cross his land, and leave him a gift of fresh fruit and veggies since he lives in the middle of nowhere. By the time we finally put our boats in the water, it's early afternoon. It's a long run, 14 km total, and ends up taking us 5 hours. The river is amazing...totally remote, huge boulders all the way along. There are several boulders the size of houses just perched in the river, and it's not clear how they got there. The run is really suspenseful, since we are never sure what we'll find behind each huge boulder. Sometimes it's a hole, sometimes a drop, and sometimes flat water. There's lots of wood in the water, adding to the suspense since we have to check each drop to make sure it's not a sieve before we run it. Despite the long drive here, the run is well worth it.
End of the gravel road - egads, nearly 200 km of gravel driving to kayak this 14k of river!
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We have the river to ourselves, making it well worth the drive.
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Steve, running the last bit of "Long Rapid" in the first gorge. Notice the bizarrely layered rocks lining the gorge.
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Amazing siltstone scenery for the entire length of the river.
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