The Slate was Aly and my 1st venture into the realm of Golden bay creeking back labour weekend 1999. We had parked the escort at the bottom of the 4x4 road picked up an overflow and started walking, 2 3/4hrs later we got to the river, put into the lower gorge and slowly made our way through. From that day weve been hooked on the bay rivers and always wanted to know what was upstream.9 years later we finally found out.
After juggling days around weather saturday afternoon we were over the hill and catching up with Phil the local heli operator. It turned out Phil and Anna were taking the kids to Collingwood for a fire works show so could shuttle us to the takeout the night before, so after a few fireworks we were back to Phils for the 
night.1st light wake up look out the ranchslider straight at a helicopter with jefe tied to it, its going to be a good day.
We flu in over the ridge between Anatoki valley and Slate and down to the Snow river confluence decided all looked good, flu back upstream to the flat above the highest gorge.
A handshake and if your not out tomorrow ill come find you from Phil and we were left alone with about 13km and 440m drop ahead of us, a blue duck flys past whistles land on a rock 30m away looks at us for abit then flys back downstream.A few hundred metres later and weve caught up with the blueduck and his family, 5 healthy chicks, and our 1st drop of the day.
4.5 hours later we hit the Snow confluence, having down 5-6km and 276m. we knew the previous trips had putin not far above the Snow and it was supposed to be 6.5 
hrs, this could be along day!Another1.5hrs and we hit the Rocky river confluence, below this is a lovely scenic gorge of 2-3 which let us make sometime up. After an hour were sitting at the putin for the lower gorge at Moonlight flat watching some goats reflecting on the river and getting ready for the bonus lap
having been through this gorge afew times.Cruised through in 50mins climbed out at the bottom, hiked up a short track to the 4x4 track, dropped the boats and headed down to the Suki for a coolish beer, what a day. 8hrs 13km 440m, 13 blueduck, 7adult 6chicks and 13 goats. time for another beer off past the devils boots, catch up with Phil and back over the hill in time for sunset. Another great day in paradise!
