PRANZ packrafting festival, Murchison New Zealand

I attended the PRANZ packrafting meetup in Murchison 11-16 Jan and had some trips later. It was a great few weeks of rafting with like minded people from various places in NZ and the world. PRANZ is an active, very well organised packrafting association in New Zealand. They are welcoming and have great trips and rivers to packraft on.
Murchison is situated in an ideal location for a packraft meetup. It has many rivers of various grades feeding in to it. There is a great, very reasonably priced caravan and camping park located on the Buller river too.
Andy and I rolled up early in the day of the meetup. We found a few of us paddlers that were also itchy to get out, so we started on the very shallow Matiri river. This was a lovely river flowing through a gorge. It was fairly warm today, so a few immersions were required, especially since I was in a dry suit. This river would be sensational with 100-200mm more water level and quite perilous with a lot more.
Our first day was a precursor for many to come. Great paddle excursions for all levels, nobody got hurt, and events day and night to keep us all happy and occupied. I was happy also to team up with Andy, whom I met in the Idaho, USA meetup; it made it much easier and meaningful to have a travel buddy to mitigate costs and share experiences with after the meetup.
The PRANZ packrafting meetup continues to be a lot of fun, I attended it in 2020 at Queenstown. The event was good then and has matured well in its organisation and attendance. There was a wide variety of skills and rivers to meet those levels. Workshops and movies in the afternoon and fantastic catering.
I was blown away with the quality of the catering. Totally unexpected, a big thanks to the organisers for employing the caterers and to the caterers who worked to keep us all happy. The caterers run a non-for-profit operation helping out needy people in Reefton, a town a bit further south from Murchison. We felt privileged that they were able to provide for us morning and night over the meetup period.
Murchison is such a beautiful location and we had great weather to boot. All the rivers running through the area are stunning. Whether I paddled on the big waters in say Granity or the quieter reaches of the Buller I was happy. This allowed for good socialisation with members of all skills. There were plenty of quality paddlers too, to enjoy the more exhilarating technical waters.
The water is so clean and clear it was a real pleasure just to float when time out to rest was needed. (A caveat on clean though: there is a pesky algae that only lives in clean water known as didymo aka rock snot, present here. We had to be careful to sterilize our gear before leaving the area and especially so to avoid bring it back to Australia.)
Post meetup, a group of us paddled the Grey river. This trip was an overnighter, adding that level of adventure and peace only afforded by camping out. (Even the sandflies weren't much of an issue.)
This river was a delight. Many rapids along the way ranging from class II to III coupled with stunning scenery kept us interested along the whole route. The flow rate was on the lower side, enabling all of the party to comfortably negotiate it without any issue.
After the meetup, Andy and I were hankering to paddle some more. We were also interested in avoiding the big rains predicted. Looking at the rainfall patterns, we felt that the rivers up the northern part of the South Island were the go. In consultation with others in the PRANZ group we were able to stay in Picton and paddle the Pelorus Pelorus and Wakamarina rivers.

The maritime festival was on at Picton. A day off the rafts and some fun in town was the order. It was nice to socialise and regather our energies before another couple of days of rafting.
In return for the hospitality provided, we had a a repair workshop to fix a few bits and bobs for Julie, our host.
It was raining in the mountains and we were watching the water levels on Pelorus with excitement. The rivers rose quickly as we watched the flow charts and unfortunately started draining almost as fast. Fortunately we caught enough to have fun on. Huge, bargain tasty meals at the the Canvastown pub easily refuelled our depleted energy resources at the end of the day. The following day we paddled the Wakamarina rivers, which was as beautiful in many of its sections as the Pelorus.
A big thanks goes out the organisers, the effort that went into this event shows in spades. Also to the attendees at the PRANZ meetup, for being so friendly and their co-operative spirt, as well as my car pooling buddy Andy for being a great travel buddy. I had such a good time and those memories will endure.

On another note, the river notes available for packrafters are top notch see https://www.packraftingtrips.nz. The information available for weather, water quality and so on are also accessible and well presented see for example https://hydro.marlborough.govt.nz/environmental.
For an interactive map and a lot more photos, see:
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Location: Murchison, New Zealand