Ok after a few months rafting, I thought I'd put down my experiences, for those who might wonder the same thing. I found when starting I was unnecessarily worried about losing the boat while simply getting in and out - you quickly get over this and realise it's dead easy to keep a hold of the boat, ...

RomanDial wrote:Yes photos are at my blog:

http://packrafting.blogspot.com/2010/02 ... sweet.html

had trouble posting them on the forum....

You should be able to just refer to the originals hosted on your blog using the [ img ]http://....jpg [ img ] tag.

This is great. Velcro makes a lot of sense for the seat, repairing my tied-in leaky seat was a pain (Alpaca generously offered to replace it, despite it most likely being my fault for leaving it overinflated in the sun). I'm surprised that you say this doesn't matter for those folks not regularly in...

The lower sections of the river from McLeods Bluff are described at http://rivers.org.nz/nz/otago/shotover. Between the farmland in the upper valley and the commercialized lower valley, it's not exactly wilderness travel. But the lower river was a lot of fun and is easily accessible, and there is go...

What are people's thoughts on this? I know safety is a pretty personal thing, some people think even just hiking alone is dangerous (whereas I'd say it's a lot safer than driving on a road, or riding a bike in a city), others are willing to tackle mountaineering solo.

I didn't have time to walk any further up than the Dredge Burn, but from here it's a clear PR2/Class II-/I+ run out, no doubt all the way to the lake, although I got out at the Route Burn, at which point it's *really* Class I. The Dart is full of glacial silt which makes it very opaque, and it's a b...

The Beans Burn drains into the Dart river, near Glenorchy. There is now a good marked track all the way up the valley to the top flat. This was a bit of a surprise, I was walking out the valley and had expected the river to be too small for rafting. But about 45 mins walk upstream of the first flat ...

This is fantastic. Crossing that slip looked interesting.

How far down the river were you where the actual rafting footage starts (1:17) ? I'm looking at the map now - something I'm still finding tricky is estimating river sizes from it.

If it finally got sick of me clumsily bashing it into rocks, and turned on me and attacked. ...or if it pinned me against wood in the water, and I couldn't/didn't have time to get to the main valve cap. Roman Dial mentions this in his book when talking about obstacles in the water, pg 85. Personally...

A few pieces of light rafting gear I've tracked down... Baltic Aqua PFD 12.5oz/355g. http://www.baltic.se/product.asp?prod_id=45&lang=eng. Note that I believe this has less flotation than equivalent US PFDs (eg MTI Livery), because the European safety standards are different (50N is the European sta...

The popular Kepler Track follows the Iris Burn out to the east end of Lake Manapouri, close to Te Anau. I gave this a go yesterday on the way out from a walking trip: it was a bit frustrating since there just wasn't enough water, and the river didn't seem to get any bigger towards the lake. With hig...

It was! I had a wee nip.

I know a few people on here and elsewhere have done this trip, but I thought I'd do a writeup since I think this is a great Class I trip that anyone can tackle. The Hollyford - Big Bay - Pyke loop is described on the DOC website (http://www.doc.govt.nz/upload/documents/parks-and-recreation/tracks-an...

What is the weight of the removable seat that the Alpaca comes with? I'm curious as to the weight difference between the Scout + Alpaca of the actual rafts, since presumably the listed weight of the Alpaca includes the seat, whereas the Scout does not.

I'm just working my way through Roman's excellent book, and working out whether to get the Scout or Alpaca (I'm 5'7"). One question I have is about the risk of losing your pack when it's lashed to the raft. I'm usually out hiking solo, and the thought of watching my raft and pack float down the rive...