In search of the Bay's wildest water (+video)

Some of the best kayaking creeks on the planet are right here in the Bay - all you need is a lot of rain, as Jamie Troughton writes.
For 360 days of the year, the Wainui River near Apata barely gets above a trickle. Fed out of a vast alpine swamp on top of the Kaimai Ranges, it threads its way steeply through the foothills, emptying into Tauranga Harbour just north of Omokoroa.
When the rains come, however, the normally placid waterway gets a major injection of attitude. Wispy trickles become raging waterfalls, rock beds erupt into roaring rapids.
In flood, the Wainui River becomes the Incredible Hulk of creeks; an extreme kayaking paradise. The first signs of transformation usually come when Blair Anderson logs onto the internet and notes a weather warning several days away, then the phone calls begin.
"Whenever it rains, it's pretty much the only time I hear from all my kayaking mates these days," Anderson muses.
"The texts start flying and the calls start happening. It's world-class around here. The problem is it's not regular but when everyone is heading in to escape the weather, we're heading out."
The last two weeks have been freakish. Two big downpours, two big expeditions of paddlers. Anderson paddled the Wainui River just after Easter when 70mm of rain flooded the area, while a 12-strong crew including top expedition paddler Ben Brown, slalom star Mike Dawson and Rotorua locals Sam Royal and Greg Thomas headed in on Tuesday.
"I usually avoid paddling with that many people on a river but when you've got a pretty good crew like that who can all look after themselves, all paddling at a pretty high standard, it's a lot of fun," Brown said.
"A few of the guys hatched a plan to go back up there again after last week. It turned out there wasn't as much rain as we'd hoped but we turned up on Tuesday morning from around the countryside."
In the lower stretches of the four-hour run are several waterfalls, the biggest of which tops 20m. But it was a smaller 10m one that sparked the biggest drama this week, when Rotorua-based Costa Rican Douglas McCormick landed awkwardly and had to be stretchered out to spend a night in Tauranga Hospital.
"I went off and landed a little bit flat, like I was sitting down, which compressed my spine a bit. It certainly wasn't ideal," the 37-year-old said.
"The instant pain was a bit of a worry but the first thing I did was wiggle my toes and fingers. They were working so it was mostly just the pain I had to worry about."
McCormick is still stiff and sore but expects to be back in a boat next week. It'll take a lot to keep him out of what he considers kayaking paradise.
"I've paddled throughout Costa Rica, the United States and been to Africa and Europe and New Zealand definitely has the most incredible rivers I've ever come across. It definitely doesn't take much to motivate a group of kayakers to go run a river. Often it just takes a rumour and then everyone manages to get off school or off work and get to the spot."
The river was first scouted by local helicopter pilot and extreme kayaker Trent Garnham, who took aerial shots and was convinced it could be run. That first descent wasn't until 2007, however, when McCormick, Anderson, Greg Thomas, Tim Pickering and German Arnt Schaëflein took it on. Since then, it's only been run a handful of times, all this year.
The La Nina summer produced a bumper creeking season, with a flurry of cyclone-fed downpours. Unfortunately Anderson missed the biggest one in late January,  because the Waimarino Adventure Park he owns by the Wairoa River was nearly a metre under water.
That's okay. He's run most of the Grade 5+ rivers in the Kaimai catchment, most of them as first descents on waterways such as Waipapa, Te Puna Stream, Rataroa, Mount Tuakopai and Upper Ngamuwahine.
But the 36-year-old uses McCormick's injury as a good example of how dangerous the sport can be.
"The young guys are getting into the extreme stuff at a much younger age but now they've got to learn about safety. "Someone will die on the river. That's the  risk they're playing at. Safety is paramount and that's the biggest thing kayakers need to take into account."