Kayak Duder to Clevedon - sea to river, walking in embarrassing shoes and rain

Who: Shirley and Annette in Ciao
When: 27 October, 2013
(Written in August 2014, in retrospect)

Horrible weather and busy lives had stopped us from hitting the water for months, so this trip was going to happen, no matter what!

The weather was iffy - windy with the chance of rain, but no matter. We had wills. There was a way.

We'd kayaked the Wairoa River at Clevedon before, but wanted to round the peninsula at Duder Regional Park and enter the mouth to the Wairoa River, paddling to town.

For this, we needed two cars. We parked Annette's at the bridge at Clevedon, where we would end up, then drove up to where North Road meets Maraetai Coast Road, right at the sea. The plan was to sail down to Annette's car, then I would drive hers up to get mine, swap, bring mine down, get Ciao and her, drive back and pick up her car again. Complex? Well, we had it sorted in our minds.

All excited to get on the water - that water, far away!

The tide was low when we started, because we wanted to come in on the incoming tide. (The Wairoa River gets VERY low and VERY muddy if the tide is too low - we will save how we learned that for another post.) It was a bit of an effort to drag Ciao, about 30kg, across the mud to get to the water and we started paddling just after 9am.

It's a sailor's life!

A decent wind meant that we could put the sail up and fly around the peninsula. Nothing beats the feeling of racing across the water, sail full and line (that's the technical word for the rope tied to the sail. I had to Google it. Don't tell my sailor dad,) pulling your hand. Fabulous!

Rounding the point

We rounded the peninsula in record time, well aware of the people watching us from the hill. ("Yes, we are flying. Yes, we are fabulous.") It was about then that we both realised - Annette's car keys, the ones we needed for her car at the end of our trip, were in the glove box of my car. The one parked at the beginning of our trip, a 'fly-at-ridiculous-speed-across-the-water' distance away.

Dang.

There was no way we would be able to paddle back effectively against such a wind, so we pulled in to Duder's and resigned ourselves to having to walk back to the car. I drew the short straw, so got to walk while Annette kept guard over Ciao on the beach. (This is South Auckland, after all. Not the best idea to leave the boat unattended.)

Not having planned to walk today, my shoes were at home. I would like to add for the record here, that we do not think Crocs shoes are cool. Except for kayaking. They are great for kayaking! But not for public viewing or walking or admitting to owning at all. Well, having no shoes other than my dear Crocs meant that I had to do the walk of gravel and shame for 45 minutes each way to the car to get the keys. I will say no more. The memory is still painful.

After returning to the kayak and hearing Annette's woes of sunbathing, taking copious photos and boredom while waiting, (no, not sympathetic at all,) we finally got down to getting on the water again.

Annette's boredom photo 1

Annette's boredom photo 273

Just past the mouth of the river

Entering the Wairoa river, the scenery changes. It is wide and busy at the mouth. Many boats moor up-river, so a few were coming and going, including a Coastguard with a broken down boat in tow. I wasn't the only one having a rough day.

Rain is POURING down

We pulled in to some mangroves to have lunch and the skies opened. Not too heavy at first, but as we headed down-river, there was a downpour. At one point, I was blinking waterfalls. But we were outside and like water, right?

It was about 3pm when we finally got to the bridge, not long after seeing some Olympian looking kayaker racing past us. We pretended to be fit and unperturbed by the weather as he passed, of course.

After the rain

After the car back-and-forthing to get both cars and Ciao home, we got back to my place at about 4:30pm.

Despite the challenges, it was fun!

Must-haves: Both sets of car keys, raincoats, walking shoes for 'just in case'.

The route we took. The dotted lines are the walk.