Three go wild at Rotoiti . row #13 June 2017

This row introduced more challenges and firsts for Toroa, With a only a skeleton crew of three on this adventure outing, we clocked up our first over-nighter trip and also voyaged in generally less favourable weather conditions than previous outings namely southerly headwinds and snow falls. The purpose of the trip organised by teacher in-charge Denis, was to introduce a young 10 year old student Nixon, to his first overnight trip in the wild. We were lucky enough to secure the company of adventure outdoors personality "Wild Boy" Brando Yelovich,who was in Nelson completing his Adventure tourism guide course and who agreed to join us in our Adventure Challenge.

Our trip up the lake took us 6 hours, due to strong, white capping headwinds and waves, plus we were fully laden with supplies, equipment and firewood to facilitate a comfortable stay at the lakeside Coldwater hut. We made it to our destination eventually, and were pleased to get there before dark. Nixon was introduced to trout fishing and possum trapping by Wildboy ,and nature won on both counts with nil results from both activities. We spent a cosy night in the hut and woke to the same howling southerly but this time we had the wind at our backs. We thought the trip would be a little shorter, but this was a massive understatement with us breaking the record for the 9 km trip in 70 minutes. We estimated this was an average speed of 4-4 knots. (All the more impressive with only two rowers.) An Exhilarating and challenging trip for all taking part with a great performing boat.