WORDS | Damian Stones PHOTOS | Dylan Gerschwitz
In the summer of 2022, a team of us went back to packraft the mighty Waiau-toa awa (Clarence River) , to summit Dillon Cone and ride some epic scree lines. The mission was unfinished business from the 2017 film "Waiau-toa Odyssey" The outcome was this film "Return to Dillon Cone".
So this last trip back to the inland Kaikouras lived up to all its expectations for being a very special adventure. 4 days in the hills and on the awa with some rad humans and the reward of finding some deep soft scree lines.
Very special thanks to Hyperformance Hardware, the Santa Cruz Megatower was the right tool for the job on this trip! The bike was right at home in this big mountain landscape.
Day 1 was straight to bike rafting to paddle down Waiau-toa awa to the base of Mt Dillion Cone to camp the night next to the unnamed musterers' Hut. I always do a double take when getting on the river when I see my megatower strapped to the front of my packraft, but the focus soon changed as we had a very challenging gorge to navigate through, combined with high river flows.
On day 2 we started at a sparrows fart to hike a bike to the summit of Mt Dillion Cone, pretty much a 10-hour day. This day on the mountain was beyond expectations. The views from the summit were spectacular and the descent was even better, dropping into some epic scree lines, it was a powder day on bikes. The top of the mountain was like riding on moonscape it was super fast, big and wide down tightly packed gravel. The lower half of the mountain was a little bit trickier to navigate but rewarding once we had found the gullies to descend. We got back to the hut just before dark for some well-earned dinner. The mountains in this area are absolutely massive you could spend weeks scoping out ride lines.
Day 3 was back to bike rafting on the Waiau-toa awa. I was pretty pleased to give my legs a break and sit in a pack raft for the day. Cool to float past Mt Dillion Cone and get a different view from our descent the previous day. This was a big day on the packrafts with some challenging and committing white water, from previous trips this was the highest river flow I had paddled on the Clarence River. I was doing my best to avoid some pretty big holes, not easy when I was fatigued from the previous day.
On this mission, we travel through a diverse landscape from alpine gnar and scree to high country gravel roads. On Day 4 of our trip we switched to bike-packing to hump our packraft and camping equipment over the 1100 Blind saddle on the coastal Kaikoura's. Always impressed by the peddling performance of the VPP suspension platform, especially considering its 160-170mm travel bike.
Very special thanks to Deane Parker and Dylan Gerschwitz took charge of the filming and production of This film. Big high five to the rest of the crew; Sam ’Muel’ Jones and Rose Green. Thank you to Dylan Gerschwitz for these stunning photographs from this memorable trip.