A Most Ambitious Journey

My good mate Steve Moffatt told me a story one day about his great, great uncle, George Park,  and his brother James who in 1889 carried wooden kayaks from the West coast, up the Taramakau river, over Harper Pass and then paddled down the Hurunui via Lake Sumner and all the way out to the East coast. Then, George the crazy bugger, kept right on going down to Christchurch. George was very probably the first Coast to Coast athlete!

We decided to re-enact the journey, a 13 day, 330km traverse dragging, lugging and paddling two kayaks the whole way.  Moffatt did it as his forebears did with only the resources available in 1889. He found the original boat made 128 years ago, and got a replica made by Ian Franklin Boat builders, thus dubbed “Frankie”. George had used his sail as a tent for the trip and unfortunately for Moffatt, this made for a miserably small tent!

I did it with all the modern stuff, neoprene, Gore-tex, and convenient dehydrated, freeze-dried meals from Back Country Cuisine. My kayak of choice for this trip was an Incept Tasman single inflatable kayak. It was almost identical in length and beam to Frankie, but it had a flatter hull, so it wasn’t as fast in a straight line, but it was much more versatile. I easily packed it away for the carry over the pass. At 19 kgs it was less than half the weight of Moffatt’s wooden boat. It was impervious to the rocks, as it’s made of the same stuff as the white water rafts that Incept manufacture. I chose an ingenious after-market sail by Pacific Action. It is a light weight, pop-up design of 17 square feet that has a huge advantage over George’s set-up in that it can be hoisted or retracted in 3 or 4 seconds. George’s rig took a few minutes, and even then the mast had to be left standing. However, George’s rig was slightly more efficient and he could sail closer to the wind. Sound technology from 120 years ago! Despite the differences in sail size, we had similar speed. George and Moffatt used their sails for a tent, and both had only a woolen blanket for a bed. Rather conveniently, I could climb inside my inflatable kayak for a cosy airbed! It was great that I didn’t need to carry a tent or sleeping mat.

The trip gave us a chance to compare lifestyles. 120 years ago they didn’t even have cars and there was no processed or packaged food. In 2008 we are supposedly more tuned in to ourselves physically and mentally than ever, fitter than ever, and have more stamina than ever. We wanted to test this.

What really intrigues us was his attitude to adventure, risk and personal responsibility. What was life like in those days? What is the kiwi adventure heritage that we’ve inherited?

The only hint we got at what food George actually had on the trip was illustrated in this delightful quote from the old newspaper clipping we found from 1890.

“So he went in search of a homestead, and was made welcome at Mr Reese’s house at Monserrat, and was just in time for breakfast.  This he thoroughly enjoyed as his own stock of provisions was reduced to two sandwiches.”

Sandy Sandblom, our independent photographer, also showed Moffatt how to make Billy Bread.

Pausing before starting the bread lesson, Sandy paused with a very stern warning;

“ there is one major problem I must warn you about what I’m going to show you. This is you last chance to back out…..? The problem is once you’ve tasted this bread you won’t want to eat any other!”

We couldn’t see how such a rudimentary recipe could sway our taste-buds from commercially made bread with all of the extra delicacies and technology available.

But by crikey, Sandy was right! It was delicious!

We quickly mastered the lining technique we’d copied from George’s photo. It was a fantastically simple but effective system; A stern line effectively pulled the kayak upstream. The bow-line kept the bow on a slight ferry glide, angled away from us on the bank, thus enabling the kayak to stay midstream whilst we saved considerable energy by staying out of the water, or at least in shallow water as we waded upstream. Clever fellow that George!

Initially, I was pessimistic about the limits of being able to float the boats very far upstream. But the system worked really well. It was extremely convenient to have gravity negated by floating all of our gear in the boats. It was so much easier than carrying.

Whilst George’s towing technique was simple, it still needed skill to operate it. Both Moffatt and I lost control of our kayaks at times. Moffatt crashed Frankie cross current and into a boulder reasonably hard on one occasion. It seemed innocently undamaged at the time, just a wee bruise in the timber, but this proved to be a sin that would re-visit later.

The grunt over Harpers pass was infinitely harder than we’d ever envisaged! We copied George and James’ technique of doing shuttle loads. Taking Frankie up to the pass, we left all of the other gear at the Locke Stream Hut. The track was hellish steep, and was littered with hurdles like fallen trees, rock falls, slips and tight zig zag corners. Whilst it was a heavy load, Frankie weighed 40 kgs, the most difficult part of the load was coordinating with the other. When one of us slipped, which was frequent, the other had to stabilize with all of their might. We daren’t drop Frankie, for it would smash a terrible hole in it. Much of the time it was two steps up and one slip back. We’d have to stop every 20 metres for a break, as our heart rates maxed out.

Finally, exhausted we stood on the Pass marveling at how fit those Park brothers must’ve been, because that same day they went back and got the second boat! There was no way we could do that. Wearily we descended back down to the hut daunted by the next day’s task of carrying the remaining gear and kayak up. Those 2 days lugging gear over the pass shattered us, and we never recovered fully from that exertion. For the remaining 9 days to Christchurch fatigue accumulated and we got daily slower.

Just as resourceful George would’ve been, we scrounged through the campground rubbish piles and eventually found an old tent pole. Moffatt thought that George must have been looking over his shoulder, as it was an amazing coincidence to find such a lovely piece of Oregon that was the exact length of our broken mast.

Moffatt’s subsequent beach landings were textbook perfect. We finished the trip without any further drama, and we not see any of the sharks that the Press reporter warned George to watch out for. We were accompanied by dolphins, a flock of Gannets, and spotted numerous seals down the coast. We finished exhausted but reflective. We’d survived, our bond of mate-ship was hugely strengthened as only it can be, when two mates depend on each other for safety and survival in nature. Most importantly, we’d got a very good look at what life was like for George Park and those other pioneering adventurers of early New Zealand.

Those adventurers were tough bastards. There was so much more unknown then. Their trip outcomes were less predictable. They needed to rely on their own skills and judgment of risk more than we did. Their level of personal responsibility was far greater than ours.

We’re so inspired by the Harper Pass trip that we’re going to do more.

Moffatt discovered George and his brothers were the first Europeans to canoe Cook Strait. There were some other mad keen Rob Roy canoeists. George Mannering and Marmaduke Dixon attempted to climb Mt Cook and then paddled out to the east coast. They also paddled from Bealey to Kaiapoi, hitching a ride to Christchurch in a horse drawn cart in time to attend the Canterbury Jockey Club ball, all in one day!

Finally we’ll kayak down the Hollyford to explore Fiordland. And there’s the name of our documentary series, “Frankie Goes to Hollyford!”