Waiototo River Jan 1

We awoke to a yellow-filtered new year thanks to the Australian wildfire plume tracking over us. It was truly bizarre (so bizarre I had to majorly retint all the photos) and persisted all day. We had a jet boat ride up the Waiototo arranged for 1pm and so did roadside sampling along the Jackson to start our day, which was productive. Wayne the jetboat pilot was rather friendly and good to chat with. He certainly knew the river exceptionally well. We stopped in the vicinity of the Alpine Fault where he gave his tour spiel about the kiwi sanctuary and then surprised me by putting me on the spot and asking me to tell his clients about the fault. I switched into teacher mode and gave my intro level explanation. The further up we went the bluer the waters got. After a few quick tour stops, we plowed up the boulder narrows rapid where dropped us off near Brewer Spur, 14 km upstream from our starting bridge. We readied packrafts and battled sandflies, then crossed to the largest cliff which looked to be an ideal sampling location. Despite the cliff being only ~50m from the river, it was a non-trivial exercise trying to get to the cliff base around, over and under car-sized boulders. After we grabbed the sample I had the extreme misfortune of tripping and stabbing my eyelid on my pry bar. The trauma and blood was rather disconcerting and instantly put me on edge.

The boulder rapid was a nice highlight- remarkably unfeatured whitewater requiring mild paddling to avoid rocks. We passed some really interesting sequences of fill terraces. I was able to confirm the presence of a rock avalanche deposit at Selbourne Spur, but alas it appeared as if it would be very difficult to date.

We documented all the riverside outcrops but did not come across anything worth more detailed work given that the day was getting on at this point, it was forecast to rain heavily soon, and I had an headache and stress due to my eyelid gash. Once we crossed the Alpine Fault the outcrops disappeared and the river slowed around lazy, sinuous bends. It was close to 6p when we finally arrived back at the Waiototo Bridge. The rain began to set in. I was feeling pretty uncertain about my eye but we had to at least go back to our Jackson River campsite to fetch our gear. As we drove along the road we passed all the Cascade End locals bailing, several giving us strange looks. It was later revealed they were running for their lives and we were heading into a location that was about to get very wild. Once at the campsite I decided a quick meal in my tent and ibuprofen would have to do until the morning. It was a long night of torrential downpours, daylight-inducing lightning, and ground-shaking thunder that end with an incredibly rude awakening.