by Jimi Hunt
At the last minute his mate couldn’t make it. We’d arranged to meet in the park right at the top of the Waikato River, next to the floodgates that control the release of water from the lake into the river. We were there getting things organised for the scheduled start time of 10 am. At 9.30 a truck and trailer with kayaks pulled into the park. The driver’s door opened and out hopped a man who looked about 70. The passenger door opened and a kid of about 14 hopped out and proceeded to start unpacking a kayak. He then walked over and confidently introduced himself as Brock, the person from the emails who was here to guide me down the river. His granddad had come along to drive the truck and meet him at the other end. It suddenly dawned on me: I have done no research. I have no idea how dangerous this river is, and my experienced guide is a 14-year-old kid. At least he was a confident 14-year-old.
I didn’t really have a choice, so I thanked Brock for coming out and told him we’d better get ready to go. Rachel turned up. After the first weekend when the documentary crew would be leaving I currently only had Michiel as a support crew. No one else had applied for the position I’d advertised. However, Boris had suggested a woman who worked on the television production of The Nutters Club. I hadn’t had time to talk to her before I left, so I gave that task to Rachel. I told her to meet Pip and find out if she would be good for the trip. I trusted Rachel’s opinion so I left it up to her. Now she briefed me about Pip.
‘She is lovely and pretty.’ Cool, good start.
‘She did some sort of photography degree so she will be able to film and take photos.’ Excellent.
‘There are a couple of problems though,’ said Rachel. ‘She can’t drive a manual.’ Okay, that means she will have to kayak the whole time and Michiel will have to drive.
‘And she can’t really kayak.’ So, let me get this straight, the second support person can’t kayak or drive? That means I will never have anyone in the river with me, they will both be in the bus at all times.
‘There’s one more thing,’ said Rachel. ‘She is a little low on funds at the moment, and since she’ll be coming on Lilo for a couple of weeks and not working she’ll need you to pay for some food and other things.’
‘What? She can’t do anything and she wants me to pay for her food? Tell her not to worry.’
‘Remember how you said that you trusted my judgment, Jimi?’ Rachel implored. ‘Well, I think she will be awesome. I think she will help you out with all sorts of things.’
I looked at Rachel—she was being dead serious. Plus, she had these soft eyes going on that were trying to convince me to say yes for some reason. I relented. Pip could come. I had more important things to think about—we were only about 10 minutes away from getting in the water.
I’m not really one for asking permission, so I had no idea if I was allowed to jump the fence and go down to the bottom of the floodgates, but there I was, film crew in tow, dressed to the nines with my Lilo. Ready to go . . . When I got down there I realised that the floodgates release a whole lot of water at all times! There were signs all over the place warning people not to jump from the bridge and not to go anywhere near the gates. The water was moving fast and I was a little hesitant about jumping in. The Lilo isn’t exactly the most sturdy of devices. I hadn’t advertised too much what time I was leaving, but word had got out and 30 to 40 people had shown up to cheer me on. I was scared of falling off when I jumped in and having all of them laugh at me. Time was up though—it was 10 am. It was time to start Lilo The Waikato.
I jumped in. It was freezing. I managed to stay on the Lilo and I could hear the clapping and cheering from the crowd above the sound of the rushing water. Brock, my teenage whitewater-kayaking guide, was waiting for me down the river. As I caught up to him I went out of sight of the floodgates and all the people who had come to see me off.
It was quiet. I was with a kid I didn’t know, but somehow we felt a bond, so we started chatting. We were only about 30 seconds into the journey before I saw a rope swing hanging from a tree on the left bank of the river. Unexpected opportunities to have fun were partly what this journey was about. We stopped and I climbed up the tree. It was reasonably high. It had been a while since I had done any theatrics off a swing like this. I jumped. I was only ever going to be there once, so I leaned back and did a nice backflip into the river. I was alive. The adventure had started.
Brock and I paddled on down the river. I was feeling a little apprehensive. I hadn’t done any research into the river, and other than the paddle to Rangitoto I hadn’t done any training on the Lilo. This first day was going to be a learning experience for me. Head up? Head on the side? Chest over the pillow? Chest below the pillow? Will I get chafing under my arms? Can I kick? These were all things to be figured out, and quickly. The river was flowing reasonably fast at this point. I occasionally saw the film crew on the banks and Brock had a camera on his kayak, but for now it was enough that I was actually doing it. I was Lilo-ing The Waikato.
Pretty soon we were in the water below the Taupo bungy jump—the country’s longest bungy drop. It was pretty cool turning up there at the bottom and walking to the top. People were keen to help the adventure and I was given a free bungy jump. The film crew captured the moment, but not before I learnt the first rule of filming—nothing ever gets done on the first take. ‘Walk back to the top, Jimi, and jump again.’
Brock and I continued down the river and happened upon some natural hot pools where a bunch of people were bathing. We stopped and joined them for a lovely short swim but we needed to keep going. The river was still moving reasonably fast as we paddled on. Next stop, Huka Lodge, which is one of the top 10 resorts in the world. It deserves its place on the list—it’s simply stunning. Luke had managed to convince them to let me in but I had no idea how. I paddled up to their immaculately manicured lawns, making sure to stay close to the left bank of the river. The water was moving swiftly now and about 100 metres downstream lay the treacherous Huka Falls.
I pulled up my Lilo and walked my dripping self across the lawn up to the lodge. I felt as if I was lowering the tone of the place by a few stars. No worries. I was greeted on the deck by the manager. He couldn’t have been more welcoming and showed me to a seat for lunch. I was served course after course of lunch and then High Tea. I have no idea what half the things I ate were, but they were exquisite.
After lunch I sat down and had an off-camera chat with the manager. I had to know why he had been so welcoming. No one gets to film there! ‘That’s right, we don’t allow any filming here,’ he said. ‘But I think what you are doing is amazing. I think that more people need to talk about depression. It has affected people that I love and I wish people were more understanding of it and more was done to help fix it.’
We went on to discuss depression at great length. He had never suffered from it, but people he knew had and he had a lot of sympathy for everyone affected by it. It was another illustration of the fact that depression affects so many of us, whether we suffer from it or not. I was extremely grateful for everything he had done to help Lilo, but apparently he was more grateful for the fact that someone was doing something like Lilo.
I’d had grand ambitions to go over Huka Falls in a Zorb ball, but that was not to be. I was simply going to have to give them a miss. So I left Huka Lodge about 100 metres up from the falls and was driven a few kilometres down the road to the guys at Hukafalls Jet. These guys were awesome enough to take me on a jet boat and drop me right up at the base of the falls. There I was, in front of a couple of hundred spectators at the falls, diving out of a jet boat with my Lilo into the whitewater at the base of the falls. It felt like a bit of a hero moment.
Brock was waiting for me and we paddled on down to the Aratiatia Dam. This dam is pretty cool. It’s actually one of the biggest tourist attractions in the Waikato because a couple of times a day the dam releases millions of litres of water down the river, filling up a massive gorge. I got there just before release and climbed down the cliff to the pool belo
w. It was eerie. The dam towered behind me, the rocks towered in front of me and the water was cold and crystal clear.
It was simply stunning. I managed to paddle and climb my way down the gorge. When this thing released it was going to fill up fast and be quite dangerous, but at that moment it was calm and quiet. It was almost like the part of a movie when the music stops to increase the suspense. Further down the river, everyone was on the next bridge to film the water release and me coming down with it. The first alarm sounded 10 minutes before the release. I was still in the water and I was feeling scared. It took me a couple of minutes to get out of the water, but it felt like 10.
I clambered up the rocks until I thought I was above the high-water line. Surely that would be high enough? I waited. I was nervous. I was sitting at the bottom of a waterfall that creates Grade 6 rapids—the highest the scale goes. The next siren rang out. People up by the dam and the lookout could see me. They started yelling at me to get out. Yeah, I’m an idiot, but I calculated my risk. The water would rise, but not tsunami style. If it started getting close to me I would climb higher. I had my safety Lilo. I would be fine.
The final alarm went off. The dam released, slowly. I waited. The water started to come through and fill the basin, slowly. This wasn’t as dramatic as I had hoped.
Then it came: the water flowed over the rocks and created a waterfall. It looked dangerous. There were some smaller waterfalls below me, right where I was about to paddle down, and they looked scary too. The water kept rising. It was moving quickly but as the water got higher the waterfalls below me disappeared. I thought that it was at its highest point now. The big waterfall above me was frantically pumping out water and the smaller ones below me were covered up.
I didn’t want to wait for the water to stop flowing. I put on my helmet, tucked my jandals into my pants and dived into the river. Cheers rang out from above. People who were once scared for my safety were now encouraging my imminent death—the human psyche is a flippant thing. My heart was racing as I travelled down the river. Brock was tucked into the side further down and joined me as I went past. It was exciting.
There was one more big test for Day One—the Full James Rapids. The 1999 Whitewater World Championships was held there and it’s a Grade 3 rapid, which is pretty serious. I turned to my young friend and asked him seriously, honestly, to look into my eyes as I asked, ‘Can I make this? Will I get through okay?’
He turned to me and said, ‘Sure, I don’t see why not. A Lilo should get through there, but you’ll just need some balls.’
Yahoo! I do have balls, but I was still a little scared. The team from Rapids Jet were nice enough to take the film crew on a little adventure down to Full James so that they could film me. Brock was going to follow me down in case I got in any trouble and Rapids Jet would also be at the bottom ready to pick me up if I got in more trouble than Brock could handle. What could go wrong?
I sat waiting at the top of the rapids. I had been given very strict instructions—stay to the right. If I ended up in the middle of the rapid I was going to smash into a set of large rocks and, possibly, get stuck there in the middle of the rapids. No worries, I thought. I’m sure it will be really easy to precisely manoeuvre a $7.99 Lilo through a set of Grade 3 rapids with nothing more than my flailing arms I started doing calculations in my head. Can I do it? Yeah, I’m pretty sure I can. What’s the worst that can happen?
I’ll drown. How likely is that to happen? Well, I’m pretty confident in myself and I’ve got what looks like a capable 14-year-old kid following me down in a kayak. Plus I’ve got some experienced jet-boat people at the bottom.
‘Action!’ yelled Simon from the boat. I pushed off the side of the bank and paddled as hard as I could to try to keep a right-hand line. Lilos aren’t exactly stable so I hooked my feet and ankles under the Lilo to try to hold on and allow my hands a little freedom to paddle rather than having to hold on for dear life. That plan was solid, but I needed my arms all the same. So there I was, floating down rapids on the Waikato River with my arms and legs clutching the flotation device. Bang. That’s a rock. And that hurts. Bang. Another rock. I made it through the top section and then got dumped into the swirling section at the bottom, being pushed up and down, water in my face, banged-up limbs . . . It was all I could do to hold on. Then, silence. Calm. I popped out the bottom, on the right-hand side—right where I was supposed to be. ‘Let’s do that again!’
Unfortunately, it was getting late in the day and I needed to get going, so I waved goodbye to all of the crew and paddled on. This was the first time I had ever been alone on a Lilo on a river. The sun was low in the sky and the dappled light shone through the trees onto the river. It was peaceful and I could have been on any river in the world at any time. There was nothing but the river and me. That was part of the problem—there was nothing around. I knew that soon I would have to find a place to stay for the night, but it seriously looked like no one lived out here. I put my head down and paddled. I knew that Luke, the producer, and his assistant, Jordan, were going to go back and get a boat, launch it upriver and drive back up and find me. It was nice to know that they were coming, but they were only coming to film me finding a place to stay that night. That’s right, I remembered, I had to find somewhere to sleep. I was going to have to ask for help!
An hour or so later the boat turned up. I hopped off my Lilo and had some food and water with the crew. Then it was back to paddling, and not too far down I saw something that took my fancy on the side of the river. There was a house, surrounded by trees and bush; down on the river’s edge was a dock with a picnic table and, most importantly, a diving board. It was made from a solid plank of wood and springs from a car’s shock absorbers. Day One was drawing to a perfect close. I’d found a massive rope swing, all the tourist attractions, random hot pools and now a diving board!
I stopped and had a few dives. I didn’t have much energy left but I can always dig deep and find a little more to do some flips off a diving board. When I was finished I went up and checked the house. If there were people there I would be able to use the line that I had been talking about for ages: ‘Hi, my name is Jimi. I just happen to be Lilo-ing your river out here. Would you mind if I stayed the night and had some food?’
There was no one there. It looked like someone’s holiday house. Dammit. I went back down to the river and told the crew we needed to move on. As I started paddling, I saw a park bench sitting on top of a hill. There was nothing around it and it was bathed in the late-summer evening light. It looked beautiful—a place to sit and contemplate the universe. I called out to the boat, ‘I’m gonna go sit on the bench! Take some photos or footage of me up there. It looks awesome.’
I had only been filmed for a day and already I was acting like the director of photography! Sitting on the bench I felt warm inside and out. I felt contentment for the first time in ages. ‘Look contemplative!’ Simon shouted from the boat below. As I was to find out over the course of this adventure, ‘contemplative’ was a look I had better get good at quickly, because Simon kept asking me to look contemplative at many beautiful spots along the river. I sat there with the best contemplative look I could muster. ‘Let’s go!’ he shouted. ‘We’ve got to find somewhere for you to stay before it gets pitch black.’
I got up and threw my Lilo down onto the rocks below. It hit a stick or some gorse or something and I could hear the air leaking out of it from 10 metres away. Shit.
Simon echoed my sentiment. Right then, we learnt the most valuable lesson from Day One—always have a spare Lilo with you. There were none in the boat so Simon was going to head down to the boat ramp to get one from the car. Then I heard a voice from near the park bench. ‘Hey, Jimi!’ I looked up and saw a man in his late twenties. I didn’t recognise him, but he knew my name. ‘I was going to put out a sign for you to tell you that you could stay at our place tonight, but I thought that you would be past here by now so I didn’t.’
Ummm, wow, okay, I thought and
I got myself together to ask for help. ‘So, may I stay at your place?’ I asked sheepishly.
‘Yeah, bro, come on up.’
Just like that I had my first night’s accommodation sorted with the lovely Casey and his partner Nicki. Simon and the crew were as dumbfounded as I was. Casey told them all how to get to his house from the boat ramp down the road. He and I walked up behind the park bench and through the trees to a line of houses nestled in a small rural settlement about 35 kilometres up the river from Taupo.
I was in my soaking wet clothes and wetsuit so after Casey had introduced me to Nicki he gave me some fresh towels and pointed me towards the shower. When I got out, the crew had turned up, and as we started talking the camera rolled. Casey and Nicki are locals, work in the area and are both thoroughly lovely. ‘How did you know I was down there?’ I asked Casey.
‘I saw someone sitting on the bench and thought it might be you so I went down and had a look,’ he replied. ‘I heard it on The Rock.’ Then, like magic, in the background The Rock started playing its ‘Best of the Week’, which just happened to be an interview with me on The Morning Rumble. We all had a chuckle.
JIMI’S LESSON #11: If you want the people of the Waikato to buy your product, get on The Rock and in the Waikato Times.
After interviewing Casey and Nicki for a little bit it was time for the crew to head off to their accommodation and leave me with my new friends. So they left, and there we were, one random Lilo-toting guy, and two lovely people who had taken this strange stranger into their house.
‘Are you hungry?’ they asked.
‘Well, yes, actually I am.’
Nicki quietly hopped up and went to the kitchen. I’m not sure if it was all the paddling I’d done that day, but she made me the nicest home-made burger I’ve ever had in my entire life. Not a word of a lie. I demolished two of Nicki’s delicious burgers as my new friends and I watched the New Zealand Rugby Sevens from the comfort of their couch.
