“I guess we all are truly in-between swims.”
For whitewater kayakers, not a truer word’s been spoken. This was the caption on kayaker Tyler Russell’s video explaining a rather hellacious beatdown he took below a 15-foot waterfall feature at the Vector Wero Whitewater Park near Auckland on New Zealand’s north island. This stuff is supposed to be controlled fun, right. You don’t actually get to see Russel’s line. He just appears in the white maw. And stays there until he pulls the rip chord. His friends weren’t too worried about him, as you can tell from the commentary.
Check out the vids on the whitewater park’s Facebook page. The facility guides rafting punters off the falls all day, like a ride at the amusement park (rafting companies also run clients off a waterfall on the Kaituna River in Rotorua).
The Vector Wero facility is fairly incredible, with multiple river channels and rapids up to Class IV. It’s publicly owned and free to the public. The park is also a training facility for slalom racers, freestyle paddlers, and river-runners as you can see. Not every run off the falls ends in disaster. Here’s a cleaner line:
