just another exercise

3 October 2006

To prepare for the circumnavigation of Stewart Island on Exercise Kapyong Summer, eight members of 163 Battery, 16 Field Regiment, assisted by AATC, decided to conduct two arduous sea kayak paddles. The paddles aimed to prepare the team for some of the sea, weather and paddling conditions they may encounter on the Stewart Island expedition.

With dates set for the last week of winter and the first week of spring, it was important to pick areas that would best represent the conditions that the team could expect on Stewart Island. Therefore, they decided to conduct two four-day paddles.  The first would be a circumnavigation of the 150kms around d’Urville Island which offers some extremely challenging paddling conditions, with the notorious French Pass and Stephens Passage to be negotiated. 

The second paddle would be a 155km kayak around the Banks Peninsula. This paddle would challenge the team with large sea swells and difficult landing locations resulting in some particularly long paddles.

With all the planning completed and technical equipment and expertise provided by AATC, the team began the two-week expedition in fantastic conditions in the Marlborough Sounds.

The first day’s paddle saw the team cover over 30km and negotiate the French Pass without significant incident. The weather on day two remained fine but the on-shore winds made for some very turbulent seas with swells of up to 2m, giving the kayaks a bit of a battering as we headed north. As we reached Port Hardy the wind died significantly, ensuring a good day’s paddling. 

The night was spent in an idyllic spot, beautifully named Skull Bay! A gale force southerly wind ensured an almost sleepless night and some significant damage to several of the tents. It was with some relief that we left Skull Bay, yet the team was acutely conscious of the forthcoming 40km paddle around the Stephens Passage.

In strong winds and some very rough seas, the team reached the passage during the turning tide, supposedly the best time to navigate it. However, with a favourable current, yet a head wind, the seas could have been extremely dangerous. Thankfully, nobody had any incidents and the day finished with a relatively easy paddle as we headed south along the stunning coastline. 

Day four was to be split into a long day paddle, followed by a short night paddle across the French Pass and back to the mainland. Again the weather conspired against us and, as the day drew to a close, the wind picked up significantly, turning what had been a very favourable crossing into, potentially, a very dangerous one due to the in-rushing tide and now strong winds. For safety reasons, we decided to complete the paddle before last light.

One of the highlights of the day paddle – and probably the whole expedition – was sighting a pod of Orca in one of d’Urville’s numerous bays. Four Orca, including a very large male, swam amongst our kayaks and some of the smaller ones happily surfaced within arm's distance of us. It was a fantastic experience, on what had been a memorable day’s kayaking.

The end of the paddle proved to be far more eventful than the first crossing of the French Pass. The wind really picked up as we crossed and the rushing tide made for some “interesting” moments! The weather dealt us one more unexpected blow. Just as we thought we had completed the crossing and begun to relax, believing the hard work had been done, the weather once more turned into a gale force offshore wind, which made us fight for the last few metres.

With d’Urville Island completed there was no time to rest the body and we moved almost immediately down to Burnham and then on to Banks Peninsula. Indeed, during our rest day we even found time to go down to Sumner Harbour and practice our capsize drills and surf landings!

The Banks Peninsula paddle, like d’Urville, started in superb weather conditions, with a trip to Ripapa Island in Lyttelton Harbour. An old naval gun outpost and now national heritage site, Ripapa Island still houses several guns from WWII and was an excellent opportunity for us gunners to get all historical! The night was spent in Little Pigeon Bay on the north coast, some 25km from our start point.

Northerly winds made day two an excellent opportunity for a long day’s paddle, as they provided a tail wind for most of the day. Large swells of up to four metres provided some challenging sea conditions, but the team – spurred on by numerous schools of Hector dolphins – paddled hard and by the end of the day had covered 51km. 

The night was spent in Flea Bay, a marine reserve just west of Akaroa. Flea Bay is also a Blue penguin mating area and they were in “season”, as the land owner explained. This results in over 900 blue penguins coming to the bay to mate, rather noisily, every night!

Day three of the kayak was a paddle from Flea Bay to the town of Akaroa and back, a round trip of 36km. The paddle in the harbour is spectacular, with numerous caves to be explored and, according to the sign, the “best blue cod and chips in New Zealand!”

On day four the team headed in to a part of the Banks Peninsula that few sea kayak trips ever complete. Due to the large surf breaks, the area to the east of Akaroa can be difficult to negotiate. However, with favourable winds we felt confident to continue.  It proved to be a good decision, with some particularly rugged coastline, the area is in stark contrast to the rest of Banks Peninsula and is colonised by seals – hundreds of them! The day and the expedition finished on a high, with a good surf landing to be negotiated providing several laughs! 

Safely back on land, the team reflected on the past two weeks and the two completed paddles. In February every member of the team was a novice sea kayaker. Under the tuition of the AATC, they have completed a basic sea kayak course and now have completed two of the more arduous sea kayak paddles in New Zealand, paddling over 300km in eight days. The team can be rightly proud of that achievement.

In November the team will attempt to circumnavigate Stewart Island, a paddle that has only been completed by a handful of people. On the evidence from the past two weeks, 163 Bty has the team, skills and – more importantly – the determination, to complete this expedition. In short, the team are ready!

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