CANOEING IN A GALE

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21746, 31 March 1936, Page 10

CANOEING IN A GALE

ADVENTUROUS TRIP DOWN

RAKAIA RIVER

Buffeted by a fierce north-west-erly gale, a party of canoeists had an adventurous trip down the Rakaia river from Lake Coleridge power house to the Gorge Bridge on Sunday. The 'slightly flooded river, its numerous rapids, and the gorge would have been fairly easy to negotiate but for the wind, which made steering impossible at times and finally lifted one of the three canoes off a shingle bank, carried it for 30 yards, and so damaged it that the occupants had to abandon their voyage. The canoes were manned by Messrs A. G. Flower and J. F. Hayes, L. R. Hewitt and T. Newth, and T. N. Robins and E. W. Rich | respectively, and it -was the first of these that met with misfortune. The party, all of whom are members of the Canterbury Mountaineering Club, drove to Lake Cole- i ridge on Saturday and at 11 o'clock, on Sunday morning launched their boats in the tail race from the power house. The weather was fine to begin with, but the gale soon brought rain with it. In the open river the boats Were difficult to control in the wind, and the canoe of Messrs Flower and Hayes was damaged when they had reached a point about eight miles below the power house. The high walls of the gorge provided some shelter for the other canoes during the latter part of their trip, although one was swamped jn the rapids at the beginning of the gorge. The Gorge Bridge was reached at 4.30, the party returning to Christchurch by motor-car.