In anticipation of going down Doom Creek with Sara I visited probably twenty tyre shops between Dunedin and Christchurch (en route to other places of course) over the previous month asking if they had any old innertubes I could have for a float trip. Once in overabundance, modern tyres do not use innertubes so they can be hard to come by these days. Many that the shops did have were either too small or two large to make good rafting tubes. Eventually I found two that were just the right size. If there is ever a competition for the friendliest tyre shop on the southern half of the South Island I would feel well qualified to judge!The day started hot and preceded to get hotter- perfect canyoning weather. This particular canyon did not have any abseils so we did not have to carry any ropes or harnesses. All the drops could be jumped. We followed the wide track as it contoured along the Wakamarina River and eventually into Doom Creek. I was sweating profusely from the heat by the time we reached the creek. We had a quick lunch then suited up.
We scrambled our way downstream over large boulders. At one point I found a dark slot down between two boulders which emerged from behind a waterfall. Carrying on, we came to the first jump- refreshing! Sara required quite a bit of persuasion. The second jump shortly followed. This falls forms the gateway to a nice long sculpted narrows section with many small downclimbs, jumps, and swims. It was all really fun and friendly, and unfortunately, over before we knew it.
When we reached the confluence with the Wakamarina River I pulled out the tubes from the pack and began pumping with the bike pump. I worked up a sweat pumping the tubes to a reasonable level of inflation and then we floated on down the shallow river. The Wakamarina had a classic pool-drop style. We would float across a calm pool, slip bumpily down a small rapid or riffle, float across a pool, and so on. None of the obstacles were big enough to be a worry, so again, fun and friendly. It was hard not to wear a smile. Towards the bottom of the gorge we floated through a remarkably deep stretch of the river and I could not help myself. I had a good look around for cliff jumping options and settled on a clean 16m jump. Sara went for the 6m option with more persuasion. We floated on down to where a tributary entered on the left and climbed out on the right. Two minutes later we were at our car! A great summer's day!
For extra credit we did the 10 minute trip through Deep Creek. I was told all pools were less than waist deep so took nothing but shoes, shorts, shirt and camera. Turns out I could have done without the shirt! Several of the pools were deep wades or swims. It was very cold without a wetsuit, but the canyon was so short that it worked out fine. Once sorted, we drove to Mapua to catch up with Richard and Chantal and ended up camping on their lawn overlooking vineyards and the sea.
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