Author: admin

BARRY COMING IN THROUGH THE SURF AT SUMNER BAR ( PHOTO THROUGH A TELESCOPE!)
JUSTINE APPROACHING SUMNER

MATT & PAUL – THE GREETING PARTY
WE DID IT!! It’s not really sunk in yet but at about 4pm this afternoon Barry and I pulled our kayaks up the beach at Sumner and completed the circle around the South island.

We had a bit of a worry this morning when we listened to the 7.30am forecast and it said there was a gale warning for our area with 35 knot winds from the SW predicted for the afternoon. We’d previously been told it was due to be NorthWesterly which would be pretty much behind us so we were having a fairly relaxed start ( we waited until it got light before we got up!!). As soon as the words ‘gale warning’ were spoken, we stepped up a gear and got on the water as soon as possible and started paddling hard south. Fortunately it was still Northwesterly while we were on the water and we surfed south at over 8km/ hour. We made it to Sumner around 3pm but before we could put our feet up, we had to get in through the surf at the Sumner bar – just to make sure we couldn’t relax completely until the end! We made it through the right way up, with a few exciting surfs and paddled the last 1km in flat water to where we launched 67 days ago! We were met by Paul Caffyn, who drove for 3 and a half hours from Greymouth specailly so he could spray champagne over us and smear pavalova over our faces, as is becoming the tradition for people who circumnavigate the South island. It was great to see him. Matt MacKenzie was also there to greet us – he’d spotted us through a telescope 10km outside Sumner and took the photos of us coming in. He also had a great array of fresh food to give us which was great, thanks, and we’re staying with him now! Ian Smith made it down to give us a beer and a congratulations which was great ( and my head was starting to get light with all the celebrations!!)

JUSTINE AND BARRY COMING INTO SUMNER
We’ll both write more tomorrow and post a few photos. For now, we’re going to get clean and go out for some food and a few more beers with Matt! Hopefully Paul will send us a couple of his photos that he took when we arrived aswell as we didn’t take any!!Oh yeah, and the alarm is definately being turned off tomorrow morning!!
THE VIEW UP THE COAST FROM INSIDE SUMNER INLET

S43°08.01' E172°49.22'

Amberley Beach after 91km paddle! Made most of the tailwind. 11 hours hard paddling to reach good landing 10 minutes before dark. Surf launch this morning. Tired but only 50km to go. We hope to finish tomorrow!

[alex on behalf of jc]

Wind and chop against us in the morning, paddled four hours when it eased a bit in the afternoon and covered 24km. Landed through 2m surf, was OK because we chose a sheltered spot. Saw lots of dolphins and albatross.

[alex on behalf of jc]

We’ve had a great day off in Kaikoura. Matt McKenzie put us in touch with Gaz & Sarah here in Kaikoura and we’re camped in their garden and are showered and have been fed with lots of tea! They did offer us dinner last night but we’d already had fish and chips, a double ice-cream and a large pizza each ( and that all between 4.30pm and 6.30pm!). Gaz is a kayak guide here and Sarah works on the whale watch boat. She took us out on one of the cruises this afternoon which was fantastic. We saw 2 sperm whales, both of them dove down to go fishing and showed us their fantastic tails. We also saw a pod of about 200 dusky dolphins showing off to each other and to us, doing more back flips, somersaults and tail slaps. It was a great tour with informative commentary on a fast boat which handled the swell really well and traveled at 25 knots!! ( what are we doing in kayaks, again!?).

We have less than 200km to go to get back to Christchurch. It’s day 64 today and it was a great day for paddling today but we decided we’d rather have a day to chill out, rest, soak in the local wildlife and chat to Sarah & Gaz. The forecasts have been unreliable lately ( no offence Karel who has done a great job sending us daily forecasts by sat phone ! There seems to be a complex weather system at the moment, with all sorts of winds predicted at different times but it never seems to do what they say!). But we hope to get back on the water tomorrow and continue the paddle south. We’re not sure how long it will take us to complete the circle – we don’t fly home until late April so there’s no rush, we’ll just see how we feel! Personally, I have mixed feelings and part of me wants to ‘get it done’ and get back to Christchurch, whereas part of me wants to savour it and make it last just a bit longer!!

Thanks to everyone for putting comments on the blog. We really enjoy reading them all when we get to a computer and it’s great to know that people are following along with us.