Right, planning underway for labour weekend sunday trip down the Conway river. All depends on weather this one guys believe it or not! If the river is too high, we won't be going. Thinking of meeting at 0800 at Wiaua on sunday to be in Conway river at 0900 at the latest. It is only 36 km's to state highway 1, so it will be a long day. This will be for experience drivers only, snorkels needed and full recovery gear including winches. Who's in???
cool, that's 5 thus far, you guys, Robbie, Adam and me. We could do two two things. 1: meet early in the morning, or2: camp out there that night, meeting late saturday afternoon. Could get on the juice=tempting.
Al
Anyone else keen. we will definitely be camping on the saturday night either real close to the river or in it at the start somewhere. bring the piss/juice and we can plan on a bit of a bonfire, i will bring the chainsaw.
Al
that depends on whether those desiels are capable of doing 100ks constantly. We can meet for the trip up, maybe shell at amberly as I will fuel up there, or we can meet at waiu for leaving there at 3pm. There will be a short convoy drive from waiu to the river, down a short way until we find a good campsite. Depends on what people want to do. Let me know your preferences.
Al
OK guys. If you want to travel in convoy from CHCH, be at the Belfast pub for a departure time of 1:30pm. If you want to meet at Waiu, aim for departure from there at 3pm. Channel 19 on PRS for those that have it. Have a hand held if anyone wants to borrow it, you'll need x4 AAA batteries though. If there are no more posts to this thread then I will assume you all have the message.
Al
Well guys, Robbie has had to pull out as he has a serious vibration in his drive train somewhere. So only four of us now. Leaving Belfast pub at 1:30pm sharp. Channel 19 PRS 027 2530424 phone. Have bought a map of the area, we are in for some challenging terrain=fun.
Al
Great trip guys another one to remeber and to be talked about for many moons to come .. thanks to Al for sorting it all out and to those who contributed in there own specail ways.. (cough) ricky ! lol
For those of you who didnt come heres what happened...
Sat 13:30 Belfast Pub... Al , ricky, billy, will and me meet and started our journey north up state highway 1 heading towards hamner.
15:00 turned off state highway NE direction towards Conway (sorry carnt remeber highway number) stoping at the pub for a beer since as thou it was such a nice day plus why not ??
16:30 entered the Conway River and processed to head south towards the mouth ... after airing down we was on our way and all in 4wd this time, with great respect for this river we deicied to approuch the river crossing with care untill we was familuar with the river bed and how it was flowing ..
After a few crossing we had got the jist of it, mainly hard bottomed with sharp entery / exit points , very fast current and a few large rocks to aviod.
we travled downstream looking for a good place to set up camp and also enjoy the vertical walls that surrounded us ..
18:00 About 7 kms downstream the river widens off and we found a nice flat area to set up camp for the nite. Parked the trucks and opened a can or two before pitching our tents before it was too late.. Ricky was quite proud that he had managed to put his tent up in no time , the fact that he was sleeping in his hilux didnt seem to matter to him, more time for drinking he said..
19:30 camp was set up , tea / dinner what eva you kiwi;s want to call it was made.. along with the camp fire, a little bit of petrol was used in a controlled manor to get it all going.
We sat around the camp fire talking about the days driving so far, with no major troubles we was feeling confident about tomorow and relaxed together with a cold one..
With the fire going well and the moon out Ricky was looking abit how can we put it ermm abit "fucked", it mite of only been around 8:30 / 9 pm but hey that was the last we saw of him.. well sort of.
Not dishearted by ricky's earily departure, out came the good old horry storys from trips before and amongest other things..
Come sunday morning at around 1 ish we called it a nite and went off to bed for a few hours sleep to get much need rest for the day ahead.
That day came at 8am when we appeared from the mushrooms we'd pitched the day before and refueled with a few paracetamols and abit of breaky .. Al being an Aussie and all was well prepeard for this with his bacon , eggs, sauages , bake beans and grease .. just what you want when your recovering from a mild hangover is some git to have a bloody cooked breakfast eaten infront of ya .. lol
come 9:30 we was all keen to carry on downstream and try to get to the mouth.. as we drove down stream the river became gradualy softer and wider, this cuased a few problems for all of us .. most was to Al being at the front he'd be stuck 1st and find the soft spot for us to recover him from.. recovery's was easy just a 20m rope was used to pull the trucks free and we'd be off again..
after about 2 hours we reached state highway 1, the mouth wasnt far away from this point on we seemed to encounter more and more soft areas and great care of route selection was taken to get us to the mouth and on to the beach ..
With the trucks lined up along the beach we looked back on the Conway and thought of how differcult it could of been with another 6 inches of water in her.. we certainly got it easy from the storys of past trips down there...
With a short drive down the beach to the tar seal, the dieseal realy showed there weakness with the sand sapping there energy from them us petrol boys waited for them with a few local fishermen before head to cheiviot to air up and have some fish and chips.. before head off in our seperate ways home ..
Another successful trip with members from ORE
PS yes i know i carnt spell before you evan surguest anything ! Ohh and 1 thing Where Was the kiwi's ?? we had 4 pommies and 1 Aussie !!
Robbie your excused due to you having a nissian lol
DONT FORGET THE PHOTO'S GUYS AND RICKY VID'S IF YOU COULD PLZ
yer was a good trip and thanx to al for the organisation.
i will get my pics up as soon as i have time im real busy with tec work as only have another 3 weeks left.
will get them up in a few days. and the one you wanted al!
RIK WHO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
will sort vid when get time adam cheers al buisy doing house for sale aint got time to edit it