Wainui river 06

This little beauty doesnt run often it took a big rainfall to bring it up to runnable flow.
The Wainui is nestled on the edge of Abel Tasman national park, Golden bay. being a short sharp run that starts with a seal launch into the pool of a 60+ foot waterfall then straight into the drops.
the 1st 2 pics are of the 2nd drop a nice pair of ledges, these show how nice and junglely the area is.

Tamati T getting amongst.

This is the main drop on this run, which we have since named Labotomy. top pic, Matt p on line.
Tamati T, tried to hit an eddy at top of the drop got regected by a keeper rock, then demonstrated the wrong line,

This is the line which gave rise to the naming of this rapid,

After falling 4-5m onto his face Tamati was luckily conscious enough to grab the rope that landed on him, 20m down stream is a nasty sieve.
He ended up with 40 stiches in his forehead. Unfortunatly this trip basically finished his paddling career, taking months to fully recover.
Makes you wonder just how good is my helmet and safety backup?
We were luckily trackside and 20min from the cars, often this is not the case.