Monsoon Season

Well I think it is monsoon season here in New Zealand... Marty, Josh and I headed out 5 days ago up a west coast river to try and explore a new river... We packed up all our gear... food for 7 days and started up the river... We hiked straight for 2 hours until we found a suitable camp site up river... Set up camp and got an afternoon of fishing in.... Marty landed his first trout in NZ and we had a few other hook ups... the next morning we packed up fished our way up in search of a higher camp site... We fished our way up and made it up another 4 or so miles.. Set up camp, landed a few nice fish above camp and got ourselves in position to have a few good days on the upper stretch of river... The next morning we started early and covered lots of water... we landed 6 fish between us included a few 5-6lb fish... marty and josh both hooked fish that took them swimming down some rapids... this was pretty funny to watch them chasing these fish down rapids swimming around and behind boulders trying to get ahold of these fish... Josh managed to land his and marty's pulled out... we worked our way up high on the river spotting some big fish... spooking some and landing a few... the water was not perfectly clear it was slightly high and tea colored... that night we got back to camp with plans of making it to the top section the next day...Just as we got into bed it started to shower... then it all CHANGED... I woke up that morning to marty yelling my name... it was 6:15 in the morning and I couldn't figure out what he wanted... i yelled back and he said "You better come out here".... It was still raining and I did not want to get out of my sleeping bag... I could hear the river behind us but it didnt sound any different than the night before... Boy was I wrong... I got out of my tent out in the rain and looked at the river... i almost fell over... the river had come up 6 to 8 feet!!!! the river was 2 feet from martys tent and coming up... It really didn't seem to rain that hard but it is a big drainage and we were in trouble... of course we were camped on an island... the creek behind us was raging! We scrambled... packed all of our wet crap into our bags and made a mad dash for it... we got to the creek and debated a few times the best way to get across... we decided to link arms and make it into the middle behind a rock... this worked ok for a while but with 50lb packs on your back it was pretty crazy... the last part was a 15 foot swim in some pretty fast water... we put the packs around one arm and floated/swam down the river... marty made it to the other side safely... then me... then little josh... it was pretty intense... we were pretty pumped up once we got across the river but then we realized we had a LONG walk out... we had walked up the river bottom most of the way and now there was no chance of that... there was no trail on this river and we are on the west coast... this turned into an 8 hour bushwhack! it was really rough... because the river is gorgy there was a lot of up and down... because there was no trail you couldnt tell which was better.. .you would go up for a bit... then climb down... to turn back around and go back up... we covered about 6 miles in 8 hours... it took FOREVER! we finally reached the car bruised and battered... Of course we arrive to a dead battery and a nice rock someone decided to throw through our rear window... that was real nice.. we got a jumped... cleaned the glass out and headed back to town... luckily we had been warned about this river and left all of our gear and valuables at a hostel... so we are showered and well fed now and are trying to get on a helicopter to fly into a remote river in a couple of days... We will be around for 2 more days then fly out on the 23rd into a very remote part of NZ...