I’ve been in New Zealand for over two months now, and time is flying here. It’s nice and warm, super beautiful, there’s paddling every day and long days working and paddling keep you so busy!
I flew mid november straight into Queenstown, where I met up with Dylan, JV, Shannon, Willz and Brendan. We paddled the Nevis river near Queenstown which is still one of my favorites, just super continuous, lots of fun and technical moves, good drops, good water, steep and really long. Such a good run with nice weather and good friends to show me the lines.
After that we drove south to Fiordland to explore some unpadded rivers and waterfalls. The scenery over there is amazing, and however we didn’t get to paddle much we got to see some amazing places. After a few days hanging out south we drove back up to Queenstown/Wanaka for a few more laps on the super fun Nevis. It was already lower but still really nice. After that we drove to Christchurch and flew to the North Island.
Right now I’m living in Okere Falls where I work and kayak everyday on the Kaituna. Warm water, amazing canyons and scenery, great friends and people to paddle with and super fun white water, overall a greta place to spend the summer. Super happy to be here and having lots of fun just hanging out and paddling daily.
Photos by Justin Venable