Scouting Ahuriri Valley and Dingleburn

Monday 9/3/26

A part of the team has been training in and around Queenstown for a couple of days, and a few of us have already met Max, and went for an afternoon of riverboarding at his workplace, which none of us had done before. After a completetely new and refreshin whitewater experience, the team is finally as complete as it will be (we still miss you Jaap) for the first time.

Max guiding Kawarau river

This means it's time to dive into of of the last stages of preparation before the expedition finally begins.

We need to scout a couple of valleys and lakes, to ensure we won't waste our effort hauling canyoning and camping gear down a deep valley which turns out to not have any real potential.

I'm teaming up with Lisa to head into Ahuriri valley, but before we go there, we have to drop off Kevin and Erik just a couple of kilometers further west, in Dingle burn.

Even though it's only a couple of kilometers distance, the detour costs us almost 3 hours, meaning we only get to start our hike around 4 pm.

Our mission is simple:

Walk about 15 km from the car park to Top Hut, and scout the 7 high level potential streams on the way there, then scout 8 lower potential ones on the way back.

Check in with the other teams and Pepijn back at the Base thought our Garmin Inreach at 7pm and 8 AM everyday.

This should take about 2-3 days, depending how good the canyons are, and hence how much time it takes to hike up and look into them.

It should take Erik and Kevin about the same time to hike the whole Dingle Burn track and cross the Mountain pass to descent to where the car is parked, so we can all drive back together

After about 10 minutes of walking, we hear quite some water coming out of the first stream we pass, which is marked as low potential, and should only be scouted if we're back early.

We exchange a look, and decide to go and look into it straight away anyway, because why skip it now, and thus having Erik and Kevin coming down the mountain early and scouting a good canyon we could have.

Well let's just say we wasted at least an hour walking over boulders to find nothing of interest, and later even find out it has been scouted long before we ever got to this valley anyway.

Erik and Kevin Scouting Dingleburn

At this point, we still had about 2,5 hours to the hut, which meant we couldn't scout anymore canyons before dark.

We still passed some we were able to look into, but they all barely held any water.

8.15: we send a message to Pepijn and the other team.

8:50: we get a message from Kevin and Erik, no potential spotted yet.

The next morning we get up, to start another day of barely finding anything. We only spot one canyon with good water levels and some interesting drops, and even a possible 8 meter slide, but this canyon alone doesn't make it worth the effort to come all the way over here, and haul all the gear down this valley.

Erik doing whatever at the Ahuriri base hut

Before we head back to the hut, we decide to check the Garmin. Kevin and Erik have already descended down to a hut, about 5 km back from the carpark.

It's about 10k back to the car before we find out the battery's dead, and then about 5 more minutes to find out you can't push start an automatic.

Okay, so that's another 3km to the hut where Erik and Kevin are waiting for us, already fantasizing about tacos on the drive back. 

After regretfully declining them their dinnerplans, Kevin and me head to some dots on the map, which look like a farm a couple clicks further south, to ask them for some help and jumpercables.

As our feet are quite done for the day and it's nearing midnight already, we come to the ingenius decision the do this short hike in Crocs rather then our boots.

Of course the farm is long deserted, and the next one is 7 more km down the road, which would mean arriving there long past midnight and having to wake up the owners.

We text Pepijn through the inreach, and head back to the hut where Lisa and Erik 

are sleeping already.

Pepijn says Erwan will come help us jumpstart the car around 11 in the morning.

After this we both go to bed tired, but happy to know we'll be able to head back to base the next morning.

It's only a shame Kevin had to wake the whole hut up again, dreaming and screaming about mice in his sleeping bag...

Sponsors

Deze expeditie zou niet mogelijk zijn zonder de steun van onze sponsors.

CE4Y (Canyoning Equipment For You) Van touwen tot neopreen: CE4Y is al jaren vaste uitrusting tijdens onze canyonavonturen.

Tebylon Innovatie en lichtgewicht materiaal voor de serieuze canyoneer. Als het lichter kan zonder concessies te doen aan veiligheid, dan doet Tebylon het.

CanyonZone CanyonZone is een Nederlands bedrijf waar canyoneers van over de hele wereld terechtkunnen voor hun uitrusting — of je nu net begint of iets heel specifieks zoekt. Achter CanyonZone staat Gert Jan: canyoneer en speleoloog met een enorme passie voor de sport. Dit is de plek waar canyoning samenkomt.

De canyoningschool De canyoningschool is wat het meeste van ons verbindt. Het is de plek waar we samenkomen, materiaal kunnen gebruiken en waar de basis ligt van dit expeditieteam. Ze organiseren canyoning meetings, reizen en cursussen en zorgen ervoor dat kennis, ervaring en mensen elkaar blijven vinden, ook ver buiten de canyon.