First real kayak! Wairoa River in Clevedon

Who: Annette and Shirley in Ciao
When: 19 April 2012
(Written in August 2014, in retrospect)

The boat had been bought on a whim, after years of saying it would be nice to have one. Not technically a kayak, Ciao is a handmade sailing canoe. The maker was elderly and his wife was sick, so when I saw the advertisement on trademe's 'Cool Auctions' page, I showed it to my dad, we immediately decided to go halves and I clicked 'Buy Now'. That is the beginning of our love affair with all things kayaking.

A few weeks later, after family had tried Ciao out, Annette and I had a go. We decided to paddle / sail the Wairoa River, putting in at the bridge on the Clevedon-Kawakawa Road, about 350m from the roundabout to town.

We put in at low tide, which proved difficult. The Wairoa is extremely tidal and there was a significant drop from the jetty to the water. A lot of effort and mud later, we finally were afloat just after 10am.

Mud from getting the boat in the water!

This was a good experience - we now know to think carefully about tides - not only for access but ease - when kayaking, think of going outwards on outgoing tides and inwards on incoming. We have found that mid-tide often works well for us on one-way trips, because we can let the water help us out in both directions.

Back to the trip - the Wairoa River is pretty and quaint near the bridge. Hard to believe that it was a major thoroughfare for ferries to Auckland from the 1860s to the 1920s as we paddled between narrow banks of weeping willows and cottage gardens.

The river is starting to widen up

After about ten minutes, it widens up and we saw more farmland on either side. There was not enough wind to do anything with the sails and I had the mizzen wrongly rigged anyway, so we drifted and put the paddles in the water from time to time.

With the tide out, there was a lot of mud. The river widened and we started to see more jetties. At one point we passed a large mud flat with a tussock area in the middle - maps had shown an island, but probably only at high tide.

This first adventure consisted of a lot of oohing and aahing, very sporadic paddling, enjoying being outside, taking Instagram photos on our phones and eating the many snacks and chocolate we brought. A great introduction to kayaking!

The paddles posed more than worked

The river continued to widen and now we saw boats mooring at stakes on either side. The water marks on these were so much higher than the current level. We discovered another disadvantage of low tide here - it was impossible to get out of the boat for a needed loo stop - the muddy banks were just too slippery to get a hold of and even the few pontoons were too high.

Finally, after not being able to stop for a toilet or lunch break, it was getting rather important for us to pull alongside, however we could. We came across a group of boats around a floating jetty with a ramp to shore. Not being able to get on the jetty, we ended up pulling up to a boat and 'borrowing' its stern to get out of Ciao and cross to the jetty. A port-a-loo was at the top of the ramp on shore - yes!

We had hoped to reach the river mouth and were sure that we were nearly there, but were getting tired. Time to turn around and head home. It was amazing to see how quickly the incoming tide changed the area. There was an island now and far less mud. We also found that the water carried us, so we could just drift and enjoy. Fabulous!

Tough life on the return trip with the tide on our side

I discovered Instagram that day - worked great!

When we arrived back at the bridge jetty at about 3:20pm, it was much easier to lift Ciao out of the water. It and we were covered in mud but it was a fantastic introduction to getting outside on the water.

All that mud was from the beginning of the trip

Happy adventurers

Muddy butt

Things we did right: took a map of the river and had a good idea of where we were at all times, snacks, taking photos
Things still to learn: the impact of tides on accessibility and movement.

Our route