The Best of Packrafting New Zealand with Packrafting Queenstown Owner, Huw Miles

Episode #7, A Beginner’s Guide to Packrafting & Bikerafting

Starting today and through fall we’ll be sharing stories, podcasts, videos and photos focusing on international packrafting adventures. We’ll explore places we guide or will be guiding, such as La Venta River in Chiapas, Mexico, and Chilean Patagonia. But also some places we are not guiding, such as Tajikistan and beyond.

February 2025, we’re heading over to New Zealand to partner with Huw Miles of Packrafting Queenstown and Deane Parker of Deane Parker Adventure Channel on a specially curated adventure of that country’s finest rivers.

So for episode #7 of A Beginner’s Guide to Packrafting & Bikerafting, we decided to talk with Huw first a bit about his life and his business. But we primarily are focusing on what packrafting New Zealand’s South and North islands is like.

Well spoken and extremely knowledgeable about his adopted country, Huw shares stories about his favorite adventures, the wide variety of rivers available for beginner to advanced boaters, the first descent opportunities for the world’s heartiest packrafters, and the many highlights of paddling in New Zealand.

I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did. I have some serious FOMO right now.

summary

Packrafting in New Zealand offers a unique and exciting experience for outdoor enthusiasts. The country’s remote and pristine rivers, particularly in the South Island, provide opportunities for both beginner and advanced packrafters. The upper sections of rivers, such as those in Fjordland, offer unexplored and challenging terrain for those seeking first descents and exploration.

The South Island is known for its breathtaking landscapes, including fjords, sounds, and mountains, making it a stunning backdrop for packrafting adventures. The North Island also offers packrafting opportunities, with rivers like the Mohaka and Wanganui providing diverse experiences.

New Zealand’s low population and easy logistics, as an English-speaking country, make it an accessible and welcoming destination for packrafting. Additionally, the country’s laid-back culture and friendly people add to the overall experience.

The presence of backcountry huts and a well-maintained trail system, including the Great Walks, provide convenient options for accommodation during packrafting trips.

Overall, New Zealand offers a wide range of packrafting experiences, from remote and challenging expeditions to more accessible and beginner-friendly trips.

Packrafting New Zealand Transcription

Huw Miles (00:00):

I think for me, where the forefront of packrafting still exists within New Zealand is the upper sections or the upper sections of rivers, places like Fjord Land, which is in the southwest of the South island that has very few roads, very few buildings in some places, and it’s as the name suggests, a series of fjords and sounds. So lots of water, super sheer sided and really thick, rough terrain, but terror incognito, I suppose.

Lots of places that haven’t been explored and haven’t really been seen, which is pretty exciting. So I feel like we are on the cusp of it. I reckon there’s going to be a bit of an explosion of exploration through some of these spots and some of the places on the west coast of the south island as well. But yeah, super, super exciting places to go and see what’s possible. It’s a fun time to be messing around in the rivers around here.

Lizzy Scully (01:11):

Hello, my name is Lizzy Scully and I’m the co-owner of Four Corners Guides and the co-author of the Bikeraft Guide with Steve Fastbender, AKA Doom. We run a Multisport Adventure Guide service based out of the very small town of Mancos, Colorado, home of Alpacka Rafts, the Mancos Brewing Company, and many other incredible small businesses. We live about a half hour outside of town at Scullbinder Ranch, our 35 acre base camp on the border of Mesa Verde National Park and the Ute Mountain Ute Tribal Park. 

Late in 2023 we started this podcast, A beginner’s guide to packrafting and Bikerafting to bring you another learning channel for these activities. In this podcast, we’ll share helpful informational interviews with experienced athletes, guides, and others in the community along with how-to episodes and storytelling. If you have any requests or questions, ping us at Four Corners guides@gmail.com or comment on Instagram or Facebook

(02:09):

So starting today and through the fall 2024, we’ll be sharing stories, podcasts, videos, and photos focusing on international packrafting adventures, including places we guide or will be guiding, such as La Venta River in Chias, Mexico, and Chilean, Patagonia, as well as some places we are not guiding such as Tajikistan and beyond. 

February, 2025, we’re heading over to New Zealand to partner with Huw Miles of Packrafting Queenstown and Deane Parker of Deane Parker Adventure Channel on a specially curated adventure of that country’s finest rivers. So for episode #7 of a Beginner’s Guide to Packrafting & Bikerafting, we decided to talk with Huw first. We’ll lean a bit about his life, his business, but primarily what it’s like to packraft on New Zealand’s South and North Islands. 

Well-spoken and extremely knowledgeable about his adopted country. Huw shares stories about his favorite adventures, the wide variety of rivers available for beginner to advanced voters, the first descent opportunities for the world’s Heartiest packrafters, and the many highlights of paddling in New Zealand. I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did. I have some serious FOMO right now. All right, well, let’s have a listen.

Huw Miles (03:22):

Yeah. Hi, my name’s Huw Miles. I’m from Packrafting Queenstown down in New Zealand. We’ve been running packrafting. Well, I’ve been guiding down here since 2013. I think we started running our own business since 2018. Yeah, so we run guided trips and courses and all sorts of stuff on the beautiful rivers that we have down in the South Island of New Zealand.

Lizzy Scully (03:47):

Cool. Well, I’m excited to talk to you about, primarily I want to ask you about packrafting in New Zealand because I know that so many people are chomping at the bit to get over there and packraft because you have some of teh best packrafting in the world. But first I want to ask you a little bit about your background, where you’re from originally and what your childhood was like, what are the sports you did, that kind of thing. Can you tell me a little bit about your youth?

Huw Miles (04:15):

Yeah, sure. It’s like a therapy session. This is great. 

So yeah, I’m originally from the UK. I grew up just outside London, big Welsh family, hence the funny spelling of my name. I moved, I’ve been pretty nomadic. I haven’t lived in the UK much since about 2009 or 2010, yeah, when I was based in the UK. I’ve been working in outdoor education since 2005 and adventure tourism and guiding and all sorts of different guises I suppose. So I’ve been a river guide, trained up as a mountain leader in the UK. I’ve been a canyoning guide, sea kayaking. I did my raft guide training in Wales many years ago. I do all sorts. I have done for a long time. Finally have narrowed it down that I do more river guiding than anything else. Really been a ski patroller in the winter, and I still do a little bit of training with search and rescue teams around the country for Rescue three and civil defense.

(05:12):

So that’s who we have here who respond to floods and earthquakes and all that sort of stuff. So I do a lot of work with those guys. Yeah, I mean, I grew up just outside London, as I say. So I was half an hour from Central London or 40 minutes or so from Central London, but still just outside enough that it was some green spaces and enough room to go and get into mischief and tear around in the open spaces, which was fun. But I guess in the UK we’re not blessed with the same geography that I’m lucky to live in amongst nowadays.

So I guess the pinnacle of my career in the UK was leading these expeditions. So I was a freelancer, so I was a mercenary a gun for hire if you so working forever, whoever was paying. And I’d be hired to take groups of people into lots of weird and wonderful remote places, mostly for terrestrial travel. So trekking to places like climbing Kilimanjaro or Machu Picchu, the Grand Canyon, Carpathian Mountains, Atlas Mountains, Alps, Everest Base Camp, wherever the work was. So yeah, I used to do maybe a quiet year would be maybe eight or 10 expeditions most years it’d be a busy year would be like 12 or so.

Lizzy Scully (06:27):

So you grew up in London outside of London. And was your childhood also full of outdoorsy adventures with your family?

Huw Miles (06:36):

Growing up All I wanted to do was play rugby when I was younger. So I was a very sporty child, was quite a shy kid. But I was really into my sport. And for a long time I decided that’s what I was going to do. I just wanted play professional rugby for Wales. Really. That was the big ambition. But I think at around about 22, I gave up on that idea and fell into outdoor ed. My sister worked in outdoor education a little bit. But I don’t think we weren’t a massively outdoorsy family and we didn’t have it all right on our doorstep. So I certainly wasn’t one of these kids who was sort of born into it. I’ve had to really very deliberately pursue my passion, I think. Yeah,

Lizzy Scully (07:22):

It seems like you’ve done a pretty good job with it. So tell me a little bit about how you got into packrafting. When did you discover packrafts?

Huw Miles (07:32):

Yeah, so the packrafting came into my radar probably back in about 2011 or 12 in that, like I say, I’d been, I was freelance expedition leading at that time. But in my spare time, if you want to call it that, I was sponsored by a few different companies. And my thing was I used to love finding remote rivers that hadn’t been run before in weird and wonderful places.

Then I was a river border, really predominantly then. So that’s where you sort of get almost like an ocean going and a set of fins on your feet and you swim headfirst down through the rapid. So I did that for a long time and I think I had to choose, I had to make a conscious decision about whether I was going to do an overland trip or whether it was a river trip.

And I remember being in a remote part of Nepal, we were trekking around this village called ??? near the Annapurna region, and I was supposed to be looking after my clients, and all I could do was be staring at these rivers.

(08:40):

We were walking past that, oh, if only I had my river running gear. So a friend of mine introduced me to packrafts around 2012 ish. And honestly, I felt like someone had invented a sport for me. I was like, this is amazing. I don’t have to choose anymore. So that was sort of when I fell into it, yeah, back 2012 ish.

But I think when I first heard about it, I’ll be honest, I was a bit skeptical. I thought they sounded lightweight, and in my mind when I heard someone says “ltralight”, I understood that what they were saying to me was they meant that it was really super fragile. So I thought, I dunno, this is a bit gimmicky, man. I don’t want to be in these remote places and have this little boat fail on me… which I guess is what the origins of packrafting these cheap boats that people could buy that wouldn’t last longer than one trip before Alpacka got started. 

So I think after a year of using them and helping my friend out with them, I realized that they were actually a lot more robust than we were expecting and far more capable. And then some of the leaps and bounds that happened in the boat design really changed the game as well. They used to be, I dunno when you started. But the old school boats that didn’t have the pointed stern that used to whatever they call it, like bandersnatch or whatever boats

Lizzy Scully (10:14):

They call them butt boats. 

Huw Miles (10:21):

Oh my God, gosh, when was that big change? It would’ve been about 20 13, 14, somewhere around there. Boat designs jumped forward and that was huge. And suddenly you’re like, all right, well, what else can we do? We were always quite conservative with what we tried to do. We’d run the odd sort of grade three rapid that we know well. And I remember the first time I ran grade three rivers with my packraft, I kept my fins on from my river boarding days. I was like, I’m going to swim and I’m going to have to self rescue back into this thing. I was ready. And you just knew it was a matter of time. 

But I think the boats have come so far now that all of a sudden then the trips or the expeditions aren’t all about type two fun anymore. They don’t have to involve swimming and hypothermia and all this hardship that some of the early trips sounds like they were fraught with, but yeah,

Lizzy Scully (11:18):

Completely. So I’m curious, the transition from, did you do grade three with your fins on your board also?

Huw Miles (11:28):

Yeah, yeah. I used to run grade five with my river board. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, very specific types of water though. Lots of big volume, big volumes, your friend. So where we are in Queenstown here, we’re very lucky that we have the Caldero River that drains the lake here. That runs an average of about 200 tons of water per second. Trying to think, well, that is in CFS, but it’s big, big volume. So lots of the rapids there are created by the sheer volume of water. So you get loads of whirlpools and seam lines and big wave trains, but crucially, there’s not that many rocks or where there are, there’s plenty of water to maneuver your way around. 

It certainly very, very different from the sort of territory that we take the packrafts into nowadays that tend to be the upper sections of the river, less well traveled, harder to get to, and lots of the time, lots rockier as well. So yeah, that was my thing for a little while before I had a fully developed frontal cortex. I was swimming head first down these big rapids. I did lots of first descents in South America, sort of an Ecuador and Peru. And then Nepal was probably the last big one we did with the river boards. But yeah, it’s been a bit of a career now.

Lizzy Scully (12:53):

That sounds like it. I’ve never actually even heard of this. I’d love to see some of your photos. May we have some of your old photos?

Huw Miles (12:59):

Yeah, yeah, I can try and find something. Yeah, I mean, it’s great. We used to go off down these rivers and then find really nice waves and holes and stuff and just surfing them for a couple of hours until you’re tired and then carry on downstream. It was great fun, great fitness, and a really great way to get an understanding of hydrology because it’s not theoretical. You can feel what the currents are doing to you. There’s no filter through which you feel the current. It’s not like you have to feel what your boat is doing to understand what the water’s doing. It literally pulls you, your legs, your limbs in different directions. You can feel it also. It’s a really great grounding, I think, for the river running.

Lizzy Scully (13:45):

Would you say that it’s even more niche of the sport than bikerafting?

Huw Miles (13:51):

Yeah, possibly. Possibly is, yeah. And certainly hasn’t grown and blown up in the way that bikerafting and pet crafting has at all.

Lizzy Scully (14:00):

Yeah, I wonder why.

Huw Miles (14:04):

Yeah. Yeah.

Lizzy Scully (14:05):

Well, actually, I do have some other questions I wanted to ask you about Helen, but since we’re on the topic of rivers, I’m really curious about the rivers, the difference between the north and the south island, and what are some key characteristics First, what are some key characteristics of New Zealand rivers?

Huw Miles (14:23):

Well, I think one of the big things is that you often hear New Zealand described as like a mini Alaska, right? Because we have lots of beautiful remote rivers that just don’t really have roadside access to them. So there’s lots of valleys you can walk into and paddle out of. So it’s all just a bit smaller. So there’s not vast untracked tracks of land, or not as many as you do up in Alaska. But yeah, there’s just a beautiful network of trails and we’re so lucky to have a back country hut system here. So you can walk into these wild places quite often on trails, and you don’t need to take your tent with you because you can stay in these beautiful huts or in some places, which keeps bags a bit lighter. And then the rivers themselves. Yeah, I guess packrafting territory here has become either, well, it’s changed over the years.

(15:25):

It’s started off, I guess classic packrafting would be hard to reach rivers, places you had to earn your paddle walk into, and these would tend to be sort of braided alpine rivers, not ever so deep, maybe sort of 10 to 20 tons of water per second or 10 to 20 QE boulder strewn sometimes. But then I think as the boats become more capable, lots of people started using them just in exactly the same way as you would a kayak. And so they would run lots of the classic kayaking runs and the pack Raf would become just their everyday paddling craft, which is a legit way to use your raf. But I think for me, where the forefront of packrafting still exists within New Zealand is the upper sections or the upper sections of rivers, places like Fand, which is in the southwest of the south island that has very few roads, very few buildings in some places, and it’s as the name suggests, a series of fjords and sounds.

(16:34):

So lots of water, super sheer sided and really thick, rough terrain. But terror incognito, I suppose. Lots of places that haven’t been explored and haven’t really been seen, which is pretty exciting. So I feel like we are on the cusp of it. I reckon there’s going to be a bit of an explosion of exploration through some of these spots and some of the places on the west coast of the south island as well. Yeah, super, super exciting places to go and see what’s possible, but you have to be ready to experience what’s not possible as well to do it. So it takes a special flavor of packrafting to get into it. I think you have to kiss a few frogs before you find the princes, right?

Lizzy Scully (17:16):

So you have to be willing to suffer and have really crappy time because yeah, might be,

Huw Miles (17:22):

Or walk into places that just don’t go and walk home again.

Lizzy Scully (17:27):

So literally you could get to places that very, very few people have been and explore it by raft and have a first descent still in New Zealand.

Huw Miles (17:38):

A hundred percent. Yeah. There were two expeditions last season that I got invited on, either of them actually, that were for First Ascent. Neither them would successful because these are places where just the access is so hard, either places that you can’t Helly into, in fact both places you couldn’t Helly into. So it’s terrestrial travel, super thick bush, super thick impenetrable stuff, some sheer sighted mountains glaciers to cross in some places, so no stroll in the park. And to take all of your river running gear into these places as well is another level. So there’s still places for sure. The other thing to bear in mind is that New Zealand has a super low population. It’s about the same sort of size as the UK in terms of the landmass, but we have about 5 million people who just shy of that. So whereas the landmass in the UK would be about 60 million, so it’s a huge, not vastly populated, the south island is the bigger of the main islands in New Zealand.

(18:49):

Obviously there’s north and a south island, and the South island has less than a million people in it. Yeah, I guess if you think about the percentage of the population who would be really keen on Keen outdoorsmen, which is pretty high in a place like New Zealand, it’s part of the culture here, but then the people who have the prerequisites skillset or the drive in the first place to try and get to these really hard to reach places and places like Fjord, you don’t drive through Fand to get anywhere, or it’s just a massive chunk of beautiful, pristine wilderness. So there’s some places that yeah, people haven’t ever been, I’d guess, or very, very few if people have been. We actually had two course graduates from RAF and Queenstown who did a first ascent in Fjord land two seasons ago, which was a proper proud Dad moment for us.

(19:43):

Like, oh, cool, that’s amazing. Off they go. So yeah, the secret is often finding these places to find your objective in the first place, I think. So there’s lots of skulking around in maps and reading old blogs and old archives and hearsay rumor and speculation from friends. And these things have a way of starting to, you start pulling on the threads and see how likely it is that these places are going to be possible to get to. Or maybe you find out somebody else has already been in there and then you’re trying to get some beta off them or some information, and everyone really closely guards these things.

(20:24):

It’s like finding gold. You’re like, oh my God, that’s amazing. We can go in and be the first people, because yeah, that’s quite a special thing. And sometimes you’ll know there’s somebody else kind of keen as well, and then you’re like, it’s almost a bit of a race against the clock. It’s a fun time to be messing around in the rivers around here. And I think that’s one of the privileges about being involved in packrafting at the minute is that we’re around at the genesis of the sport and the culture and seeing how it’s developing is super interesting and how it’s developing in different parts of the world. For example, because I’m still got lots of family back in the UK, and I do go back there every now and again, I see Facebook groups where people are discussing how to glue skaggs or little fins onto their boats.

(21:12):

No one ever talks about that in New Zealand, but it’s because the UK packrafting scene, you’re paddling flat water and places like canals or big locks up in Scotland and having no s scaggs helps you track in a straighter line. I remember years ago seeing lots of people in Scandinavian groups talking about bushcraft type stuff as well as part of their packrafting culture, which I guess is all down to that culture of trying to keep your bag light. But what they do is they take less and do more with what they find. And I just think that’s an amazing, amazing approach to it. So yeah, it’s just an exciting time to be involved in pair crafting, I think.

Lizzy Scully (21:50):

And let’s go back to characteristics of Rivers. I have a really good sense now of the really wild first set opportunities and for people who are dreaming about those really big adventures. But what about the people? Because you teach how many hundreds of people a year, how to packraft?

Huw Miles (22:08):

Yeah, we took 950 people packrafting last year. That’s a mixture of guided stuff and courses as well. But yeah, it’s certainly, there’s lots of very, very beginner friendly places, and it’s a great place to cut your teeth or even to step up and progress here because we have a flat, easy to access or relatively easy to access, an hour or two hiking, and then pretty mellow paddles, and that’s the sort of territory that we do most of our trips and our tours on. And then it escalates from there. 

And you can find slightly more challenging. You might find grade two or three rivers and then all the way up to really super steep grade five committing stuff or really hard to access, like we’ve discussed. So there’s just everything here. There’s a really broad offering. And again, from bikerafting perspective, I suppose what makes really good bikerafting around here is where you’ve got dirt roads going into nowhere.

(23:12):

So you know that you can get on your gravel bike and do miles and miles and miles and then strap it to your bike and come back out. So there’s lots of, there’s just a plethora and it’s gorgeous. 

Where we work predominantly in the peak of the summer, it’s pretty rare for us to see more than about, I don’t know, maybe two or three other humans all day. In these places, we see more deer than humans sometimes a year. It’s amazing. So it’s like it feels super remote, but then in your back of your mind you’re like, yeah, but holy hell, if I just drive 45 minutes in that direction, I’m back in civilization.

 It’s funny and it’s super picturesque. We have this big spine of mountains that runs down the length of the south island called the Southern Alps, so they still have glaciers and snow on them year round, and then you get these bands of beach forests and then the river’s carving the way through them. So yeah, it’s beautiful. It’s super pretty. It’s one of the most beautiful countries I’ve ever seen New Zealand. Hence I decided to move here after years of vaga bonding around.

Lizzy Scully (24:22):

So one of my questions was the five reasons why us folks from the US would want to go to New Zealand. And it seems like it’s stunningly beautiful. There’s a remoteness that maybe you wouldn’t necessarily experience in the lower 48 of the US at least. And there’s basically opportunities for people of all levels to learn. And what are two other ones when you said it?

Huw Miles (24:51):

I’d add to that some of the stuff that doesn’t necessarily spring to mind when you think about the river, but it’s equally as important, how easy the logistics are because it’s another English speaking country. And ou’re not having to worry about. Plus, it’s not weird and not strange, different foods or palettes or culture really not significantly different. So there’s the ease of all of that, which is great. And it’s certainly if you are traveling to places like Patagonia, for example, that things aren’t, I mean, not to the throw shade on Patagonia specifically, but that going into lesser developed countries is more challenging. 

And here you get to have the wilderness experiences. But then you know that you’re going to have a warm shower and a cold beer and all the creature comforts. You can go to the pub and it can be quite civilized or it can be quite savage and wild, but it’s a really easy country off the river for sure.

(25:54):

So that’s really cool. And I think the whole vibe of the country, to be honest, it’s a very laid back place, quite a relaxed place. Yeah, you’ll see people walking around the supermarkets with no shoes on, and it’s just all just pretty chill. And it’s a lovely culture and really friendly people. If you’re living in a country where on the south island there’s less than a million people, then you have to be nice to everybody because otherwise you just don’t make any friends. These places can be quite small, little rural communities and everyone’s always pretty curious about what you’re up to and pretty keen to share that the famous Kiwi hospitality and spin a yarn with you, find out what you’re up to and what your plans are and where you’re from. It’s a friendly place as well. It’s cool.

Lizzy Scully (26:41):

Well, that answers my five questions. You mentioned huts, and I want to know a little bit more.

Huw Miles (26:47):

So I mean, picture cabins in the woods, essentially. So these are throwbacks from years and years and years ago from sort of the gold mining era back in the 1800s and all of that sort of stuff. A lot of them, so they grew out of that. So some of them are pretty rustic, shall we say. It might just be some corrugated iron and some really basic bunk beds that have been put together with, it looks like tree branches and stuff in the super remote and hard breach places. But then there’s also a network that’s looked after by the Department of Conservation and other amazing trusts and charities that go and restore some of these places and look after them so that there’ll be toilets, facilities, some water bunk beds, not much more than that, some mattresses, but that’s all you really need. So it’s not unusual.

(27:43):

We have a series of hikes here in New Zealand called The Great Walks. I think there’s nine of them. There might be 10 now. There was talk of bringing in a 10th one on anyways, but there’s a lot of them and these great walks, the facilities are upgraded a little bit, so the tracks really well groomed, I suppose. You can almost take a wheelchair down them. Some of them are super smooth and easy to hike, and the huts in those places might even have solar panels and lighting and flushing toilets. And so they can get quite fancy, I mean backcountry fancy. 

But picture sort of dorm rooms with big bunk beds. So you might be sleeping in a dorm room in the busy part of the summer. There might be, I don’t know, maybe 20 people in the huts all sort of sharing that communal space and stinking the place out together and drying their socks around the fires and comparing their dehy meal choices in the evenings and such. It’s a really cool system. 

I know that in Europe they have something similar and in fact, sometimes even better facilities where they’ll even have kitchens and you can pay to eat there. So you don’t even need to take your stove or anything, which is pretty cool. But these are a lovely sort of halfway house. You’ve got a bit of shelter and a chance to get warm, get dry, meet some other people, or even sit out and wait if the weather turns bad. It is a real asset. We’re so lucky to have them.

Lizzy Scully (29:03):

Is it possible to stay in one every night, or do you intersperse that with wild camping?

Huw Miles (29:09):

Well, what we tend to do is we tend to camp nearby, which is sort of a halfway house in that, what’s lovely about that is that we get to manage our human waste. And we’re always super conscious about our impact on these environments and try and leave no trace. So using those bathroom facilities is super handy, but equally, we don’t ever rely on those huts having enough space for us. 

So some of the huts that are really busy will have a booking system, but the vast majority are first come, first served. So if it’s a small hut, for example, on the Landsborough River, there is a hut at a place called Creig Flat that I think is a four bunk hut, so it can fit four people. So we would never assume that we can all squeeze in there. Thus,  we’d just take our tents with us. If there’s no one in the hut, then we might go in there and eat all together out of the elements and away from the famous New Zealand sand flies. But yeah, we tend to camp out as well, which is, I mean, I think there’s something amazing about sleeping in tents and I just love it. So yeah, it’s a real authenticity to it, I think.

Lizzy Scully (30:22):

Did I cover all the things about your rivers? Is there anything else that you want to share with us about rivers and packrafting in New Zealand and what makes it so special?

Huw Miles (30:34):

Yeah, I think that’s pretty well covered. I mean, I guess it’s slightly, the North Island and South Island are different. Oh, I have said about the population differences, and that’s really the main thing down here. It’s more remote.

Lizzy Scully (30:46):

The rivers are similar in the north and south islands? And is the terrain similar in the north and south island also?

Huw Miles (30:52):

No, actually it’s not. Yeah, maybe we should talk about that a little bit. So in the north island of New Zealand’s, it is slightly different character from a geological perspective how the North Island is formed. There’s lots more sort of volcanic rock. And so the nature of the bedrock changes. Whereas in the South Island, it’s all been formed by tectonic plates and movements and things like that. And this massive chain of mountains that creates all the river systems that tend to run sort of east to west or west to east. 

In the north it’s more populated, so less wilderness areas, lots of farming lands. So maybe the water quality isn’t as good. In the South Island down here, we’re pretty lucky. And I take this for granted, but we can drink the water straight out of the river. You don’t filter it, you don’t need to mess around. In some places where it’s coming through more rural, sorry, more urban environments or really intense farming spaces, that’s not always possible. So they are slightly different and it’s a lot warmer in the north island being closer to the equator. So you can probably get away with maybe not wearing a drysuit the whole time in the north island. But the south island, you’re definitely, it definitely a real asset for sure.

Lizzy Scully (32:14):

The water in the North Island is warmer?

Huw Miles (32:17):

So it’s like you have to think we’re southern hemisphere. So north is close to the equator, right? Yeah, I’ve been here 14 years and yeah, it’s still funny to think that Christmas is really hot and warm rather than the most measurable time of the year. It’s funny. But yeah, so the North Island’s really warm. There’s rivers up there that’ll be 20 odd degrees Celsius. What’s that in Fahrenheit or pretty warm anyways, you can just get in your bodies and maybe a little rash fest, and that’s sweet. That’s fine. That’s all you need. It’s lovely.

Lizzy Scully (32:53):

Have you spent a lot of time packrafting in the North Island or mostly in the south?

Huw Miles (32:58):

A little in the north, yeah. We have the Mohaka River on the north island, which I guess is the classic multi-day stretch of river you can do. So I’ve spent three day trips on that river. And again, it’s a pretty remote part of the country near, or it runs out towards Gisborne and starts near Topo.

And the other really famous rafting river would be around the Una River near a place called Ti Falls. That’ll be one of the big epicenters for paddling in New Zealand. It’s certainly got an amazing kayaking and rafting scene. And you can totally turn up to the tuna to go and paddle solo because there’ll be other people knocking around. So I’ve paddled there and there’s a couple of other rivers. 

Usually it’s me going up there to work as an instructor for Rescue three rather than just pure recreation or helping up with adventure races. The South High is definitely, that’s my kind of paddling down here. So yeah, I tend to stick to what’s close by and what’s easy to do. I’ve got a family as well, so it’s hard for me just to disappear off and leave them as fatherless for a little while. So the stuff that’s closer and more convenient is definitely more likely to get run by me, for sure.

Lizzy Scully (34:19):

So I’m curious, oh yeah, your best experiences. I want to hear about a couple of your best experiences packrafting in New Zealand.

Huw Miles (34:30):

Okay, that’s a really good question. Holy heck. I think there’s been specific trips that spring to mind really quickly, really, obviously. And just trying to choose between them is a bit tricky. But I think one of my favorite moments, and it was like a real just moment in time, was when we were scoping out where we were going to run our day trips for the first time when we were establishing a business. We’d been hiking for a few hours and we’d found this creek and we stopped and we had some lunch. The creek was real small, real narrow, but we were just curious. We just sort of started pushing our noses upstream against the current and eddy hopping all the way up. And we came into this sheer sided maybe, I dunno, 40, 50 feet gorge that was only, you could stretch your hands out, both hands from the pack and be touching either side of the wall.

(35:32):

And so you couldn’t really paddle, but you could push your way up there. So that absolutely blew my mind. It’s a spot that we now take everybody to. It’s on the Reese River. So I think for a specific moment that melted my head, I was like, this is amazing. And it’s on a pretty popular multi-day walk, so it’s part of the restart track, which is a traditionally four day hike that people do. 

Thousands of people would’ve just walked past this place and had no clue. So it just felt like such a privilege to be in there. And the water is turquoise, it looks photoshopped, like that absolutely melted my head. I was like, this is amazing. And I just couldn’t wait to share it to show people, oh my God, look at this place. 

So that as a specific moment was pretty amazing. But usually my favorite river trip is the one that I’ve just finished. But I’d say probably the Landsborough last year for us was, I mean, maybe not like a specific moment, but those few days we spent in there, that was amazing. Just beautiful. It’d been on my list for so long. I think I’d wanted to run it for close to 10 years. So to finally be in there and to have my expectations beaten was pretty cool. Yeah, that’s an amazing place to spend some time.

Lizzy Scully (36:59):

And this is one of the rivers that we’re doing on the expedition course with you and Deane next year?

Huw Miles (37:05):

Yeah, again, a big wilderness area. We didn’t see, oh, we saw some people on the other side of the river where they weren’t close enough for us to talk to. But that was it for days. The river itself was always interesting. Lots of small sort of grade three staircase style rapids. There were some big boulder gardens to come through as well. It has this reputation, the Landsborough of being an ego killer, I suppose. So I think if you’re not ready for the Landsborough, the Landsborough will let you know. And so we went in sort of humble ready just to, there was going to be a serious trip and we would have to keep our wits about us, or that was our perception. And it actually was a lot more fun and a lot less serious and a lot more rewarding than we were perhaps anticipating, but glorious.

(38:02):

And again, we had a really mixed group. We had some super confident career raft guides and career paddlers down to some fairly new and inexperienced packrafters. And there was nothing that you can walk around if you’re intimidated or didn’t fancy having a swim when you’re still days away from civilization. So none of it was committing and it was super pretty in parts as well. 

And I think just again, having that completely false sense of ownership, because you’re the only ones there, it’s super special. So it was a really amazing place to hang out and a rewarding river, interesting rapids. And it never let off how sometimes the early parts of the trip where the river tends to be a little bit steeper, they’ll be really interesting. But then as you get a little bit further down, it might just sort of, the rapids are maybe less frequent or maybe they’re less interesting. And it doesn’t always sustain your attention. However, the Landsborough just keeps on giving all the way to the last, which is, yeah, it was an exciting place and one that, again, I came out completely driven to share with people. I just think it’s going to be amazing. So I’m excited.

Lizzy Scully (39:23):

Cool. So it was a private trip with friends that you went on? 

Huw Miles (39:27):

Yeah. We just went, well, we did it as almost like a reward for the guides. Let’s all go away together and have a bit of a blowout. And then in the back of my mind, hey, also, I wonder whether we go in thinking, Hey, we can wreck this and I wonder if it works. Maybe we consider bringing some people back. But it certainly wasn’t the intention, and it certainly wasn’t the intention to create a film out of it either, which is what we ended up doing. So yeah, it escalated. It started off as a bit of a jolly like, Hey, wouldn’t it be really cool if we all just set this one weekend or long weekend aside and go away together? And then all of a sudden it’s turned into a film and we’re looking to guide people in there. And yeah, it’s all snowballed in the best possible way.

Lizzy Scully (40:16):

Alright, so I guess reasons to go to New Zealand. I mean, I know I saw Lord of the Rings.

Huw Miles (40:24):

Yeah.

Lizzy Scully (40:25):

So are there other things, like a few different reasons why people don’t know from Lord of the Rings or don’t know about New Zealand that you think that they should know?

Huw Miles (40:35):

Yeah, so I think one of the other appealing things about New Zealand is that because we’re southern hemisphere, when it gets cold and miserable and the deepest, darkest beats of winter, it’s the perfect times to come here and you just get to skip it out. Chase the summer. And like you say, the South Island in particular is an enormous Lord of the Rings film set. You’re just driving through Middle Earth quite often, and Hobbiton is obviously up in the north island as well. But sometimes the best thing about traveling around New Zealand isn’t the destination, it’s the traveling itself. So the long drives through some of the central South Island areas are just incredible. Where I have chosen to live in Queenstown is an amazing wine region. So we make award-winning mostly Pinot, Pinot noir, Pinot gri. We do amazingly well down here. There’s lots of loads of other activities to do down here as well.

(41:43):

So when people come in the past, they might come to spend a few days on the river with us, but then after the trip, Queenstown is known as the adventure tourism capital. So it’s the first place in the world that they’ve started bungee jumping. So there’s three bungee jumps you can do. There’s some of the best downhill mountain biking anywhere in the world, probably second only to Whistler. And there’s jet boats, bungee jumping, skydiving, mountain biking, climbing canyoning or canyoneering. However you want to call it. So you’re never stunted by a lack of opportunity if you’re bored in Queenstown. It’s a lack of imagination, not opportunity. It’s all here.

Lizzy Scully (42:27):

That’s what my mom used to say to me if she said, what did she say? If you’re bored, you’re a boring person.

Huw Miles (42:35):

Yeah. Only if boring people get bored. Yeah.

Lizzy Scully (42:38):

Is there anything that I’m not asking you that you want to share with me that you feel is important about you or New Zealand or your guide business?

Huw Miles (42:47):

No, I don’t think there’s anything that we, or nothing’s jumping to mind. It probably springs to mind in a couple of days. I’d be like, ah, should have said that, but,

Lizzy Scully (42:58):

Well, I have a good question for you. How about this for final question. Tell me a little bit about what it’s like to go packrafting with Deane Parker.

Huw Miles (43:07):

With Deane. What’s amazing, if I’m honest, the best thing about paddling with Deane is knowing that when you get home, you’re going to have some epic pictures and some amazing videos because such a talented videographer. Aside from being someone who’s owned his own rafting company and put in first descents all over the place in his own right as well, so a great river runner. But it’s lovely having someone who gets it in a really, everything all really resonates with him. He understands what it’s like to be a small company running a small tourism operation. And he understands what it is to run serious rivers as well. So it’s lovely knowing that you’ve got someone who you can just implicitly trust. And I think, yeah, but if I’m honest, it’s amazing coming back and you know that in a couple of three, four days when he’s got through his hard drives and such, you’ll get these amazing images out of it as well.

(44:04):

And I’m so grateful to Deane for the help he’s given me through my fledgling filmmaking stuff that I’m getting into. I’m forever asking him questions and badgering him about the technical aspects of filmmaking or when I’ve made a mistake, how do I unbreak it? So yeah, I think from that perspective, that’s one of my favorite things about hanging out with Deane is that it’ll be a trip to remember always. Because you’ll have these mementos and they just stay with you. So it turns into from being a weekend, a thing that you do that one time to being something that you’ll always look back on. And then you can always keep, it’s like it’s almost like an investment rather than an event. It’s amazing. I love it. It’s great.

Lizzy Scully (44:57):

I think I’ve got all my questions answered, and thank you so much for doing this interview with me. I think it’s going to be fun, especially paired with videos from New Zealand. I’m just going to try to get a bunch of your videos and Deane’s videos and put them in the notes. Oh, well, actually no, I do have one more question. Can you tell me a little bit about the film festival that you guys are starting?

Huw Miles (45:20):

Oh, of course. Yeah. So Deane and I were both lucky enough to be selected into the New Zealand Mountain Film Festival this year for our packrafting films, which is awesome, which is really exciting. And we decided that we were aware of so many other amazing packrafting films that are out there as well, that wouldn’t it be fun to curate them together? To handpick maybe five or six different films, put them all together and use it as an opportunity to inspire, I suppose. 

So for us, we’ll probably try and get it out in the springtime here. Just as the seasons kicking off so that people can come away ready to paddle and head straight out the next day, or to start planning and plotting and scheming with their friends and to share some of those stories internationally as well. So the plan will be to put it onto an online platform so that the far reaches of the packrafting world can live vicariously as the winter months approach. And they can watch packrafting films and remember what it was like during the summer and plan for the next one.

(46:34):

So yeah, we’ll have that curated and ready to go, hopefully for this hour springtime, which I guess would be like, yeah.

Lizzy Scully (46:44):

Oh wow. Okay. So pretty soon.

Huw Miles (46:46):

Well, we’d like to, we’ll try. That’s the working goal. Deane is also a farmer and he’s super busy with calving season at the minute, and so that might push things out a little bit. But the aim is to do it as early as we can to inspire people, but we’ll see how the timeline progresses.

Lizzy Scully (47:06):

Cool. Well, thank you for that information. We’ll definitely keep people posted about that film festival and talk about it to our fans and followers.

Huw Miles (47:14):

Nice. Yeah. Well, thanks so much for having me on. I think this is the first time I’ve ever been on a podcast and I’ve been listening to all of your ones as they’ve been going, so I’m excited to be like, oh my God, that’s me.

Lizzy Scully (47:25):

It’s really fun. I’m having a good time with it. Yeah, cool. I mean, I’ve been a journalist for 21 years. That was my career before I started service marketing. But first it was journalism and magazines and newspapers and online publications. And then I eventually bought houses and wanted to make some money, so I had to get into marketing and public reltaions because you don’t really make money as a journalist. But this is fun. It’s different, it’s engaging, and I get to talk to… it’s kind of like when I wrote the bikeraft Guide, I got to talk to all the coolest people in the world, all the coolest bikerafters in the world. So now I’m just taking that another step further. So I love it. It’s really fun.

Huw Miles (48:09):

Yeah. Cool. Well, you’re doing a great job as well. As I say, we’ve been listening to them every time they come out here. So yeah, looking forward to seeing some more come as they go.

Lizzy Scully (48:19):

Great. Well, thank you.

(48:21):

Thanks so much for joining us for The Beginner’s Guide to packrafting and bikerafting podcast. If you’d like to follow us, you can do so on Podbean or Spotify. You can also find the show notes on the four corners guides.com blog and on the podcast page. If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, please email us at four Corners guides@gmail.com. Thanks so much for listening.