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.

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