Time for a true river descent of my newly discovered Packrafting venture and what better place than the Matukituki River, after all its on my door step! I decided to start where the West and East branches of the Matukituki join. I'd worked out that the distance down the river to the West Wanaka Bridge (my exit) was about 30km, but I had know idea how long this will take and was quite surprised it only took 3hours.

The trip was great, stunning scenery and beautifully peaceful. The river was a touch higher than normal, I only scrapped the bottom once. I thought navigating the river will have been tricky, but it was reasonable obvious where the main flow was going, so I didn't get trapped down any falsely leading channels. I had the entire river to myself but had a quick hello from the Jet Boat Tour who stopped to say hi and allowed the tourist to take pictures of this random man floating down the river in this rather suffocated rubber dingy! Race you down I said! I loved the openness of the river in the higher valley but for me the highlight was when the valley closed in just before exiting at the West Wanaka Bridge, where I meet my folks....and truck! 22nd December 2013. 3 hr decent @ 70 Cumecs

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywHAOf0Z2Hg&w=560&h=315]

Start of the paddle. Rob Roys in the background