Buller Fest!!

Every year there is a kayak/ river festival in Murchison called Buller Fest. It is one of the more known festivals on the south island and people come from all over New Zealand to be a part of it. For those of you who don’t know what a river/ kayak festival is, let me explain it to you. It’s a festival for people who love being in the river or watching others in the river. There are lots of races and competitions, some in rafts others in kayaks and its up to you if you want to compete or not. What’s special about Buller Fest is that the winners of the competitions don’t get prizes, as they just want people to compete for the fun of it and the glory of course.
So the Buller Fest started on Friday morning with the extreme race, which yours truly competed in. It took all day, as there were 147 kayakers (that’s quite a lot for a kayak race). The extreme race is a race down a tricky rapid in heats of four, where the two fastest go on to the next race until there is only one heat left. I got through three races out of 5, so I am quite happy about that! I must admit at my first race I was shitting bricks I was so nervous! But it’s such a welcoming crowd (not unlike the hippies) where everyone is cheering you on and no one cares what mistakes you make. The race took about 5 hours, so it was done just in time for the world premier of the kayaking movie “Realm”. A lot of it is filmed in Norway actually! Funny that! It was jam packed with people and so good! It was pretty much kayaking talk for the rest of the night that night and it didn’t turn out to be a very early night either! Kayakers are very chatty people, haha.

On Saturday they had the kayak slalom and raft slalom, which means that you maneuver your kayak or raft through gates hanging from a thread, while going through a rapid. Very much like slalom on skis, just a different element. I was in a raft to support a friend from UD. It was really fun, people were pushing and shoving and everyone was crashing into each other, I laughed my head off and had a hard time concentrating on paddling. Ah well. We got through two races before loosing and ended up in the blistering sun watching everyone else. It was so incredibly hot, I wanted nothing more than to jump in the river. We stayed out there for most of the day, and by the time it was finished I had some time to go home and relax before the night arrived.
The big thing on Saturday night at The Buller fest is the “Buller party”, its at the back of the café I work and inside the rafting company. Last year the theme was Fleurol, and this year it was “Rubik cube”. That ment that you had to enter the party wearing all the 7 different colors of the rubiks cube, then during the night you had to swap clothes or items with people until you ended up in one solid color! It was quite fun, It’s a good way of getting rid of old clothes and finding new cool stuff. I just concentrated on getting cool stuff, so now I have a pair of sunnies that make me look like a robot from the 70’s. NICE!

On Sunday, after a hearty breakfast, there was the big air competition. They had built a 10m high ramp next to the river, and the competition was to do the nicest trick in a playboat (a small kayak), and landing the trick perfectly. It was awesome to watch, I would have liked to try, but sadly had no playboat. In other words the Sunday was pretty much spent watching other people hurl themselves off a massive jump and saying “oooh” and “aaah” and “ouch”. It was pretty good. Straight after they had the prize ceremony, where all the winning competitors got their glory and the rest of us got randomly drawn spot prizes. They had the most awesome prizes, brand new life jackets, a paddle and Blisstick had made a kayak especially for the festival that they were giving out, to name a few. I didn’t win anything and was extremely jealous for the people that did win. But all in all it was one of the best weekends I have ever had and it was so inspirational and fun!
What a life!