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ast year, two Kiwis, a Czech,
an Austrian, an Australian and
an American went kayaking in
Kyrgyzstan. Tey needed a wallet
full of permits just to get close to
the drop zone, which took a full
day in a four-wheel drive with stacked kayaks.
Tey all made it home – except the kayaks, which
are in China.
China? Yes. Te kayakers rode through a gorge
that poured out of Kyrgyzstan and into China.
Tat was always the plan; they knew it would be
impossible to retrieve the kayaks.
Ari Walker, 26, is a golden boy of expedition-
style kayaking from Golden Bay, top of the South
Island. He spends seven months a year working on
his father’s gold mine in Mongolia, then spends his
earnings on air fares, permits and four or fve new
kayaks a year to shoot waterfalls, rapids and video.
In between, he drops in to see his mother, Tracey
Walker, who owns Zatori Retreat in Golden Bay.
But back to Kyrgyzstan. Ari is still buzzing abouthis paddle of the Saryjaz River that drains icy water
from a 5,000m peak.
“You’re in a military zone to get into the border
area and you start in a town called Enilchek,” says Ari.
Te names roll of his tongue like water over a rock.
“It’s an ex-mining town from the Soviet days so it was
a massive tin-mining town but it’s a ghost town now.
Literally, nobody there, everything abandoned, big
apartment blocks.
“From there, we kayaked about 120km over
four days, some of the most beautiful white water
I’ve ever seen, not necessarily the hardest but still
very challenging. Te river has carved through the
mountains that were 4,000m straight up and you’re
between these walls. Tere’s no way out.”
On their fourth and last night they camped beside
the river at a former Soviet meteorological station,
15km from the Chinese border. Te next morning,
they left most of their food and camping gear there to
kayak through the fnal gorge.
“It was absolutely incredible and, technically, we
were going into China,” says Ari. “We got throughL