Adventure Nation

Rachael Moore at home on an N. Zed river

New Zealand’s women tackle adventure sports.

Visit a pub in New Zealand and you’ll likely end up cheering for a Blackcaps bowler, the All Blacks in a ruck, or the Silver Ferns scoring a goal against the Diamonds—that’s cricket, rugby, and netball, respectively. New Zealand’s strong ties to England link the nation to a sporting culture unfamiliar to most Americans—and one that’s largely male dominated. While we don’t share the Kiwis’ vocabulary for mainstream sports, we do speak their language when it comes to adventure.

New Zealand’s two main islands are rugged, raw, and combine to a landmass on par in size and population with Colorado. But the parallels don’t end there. Like many Colorado natives, Kiwis face—and garner inspiration from—Mother Nature on a daily basis. “The mountains are awe-inspiring, the gorges and rivers are wild, and the ocean they flow into is cold and alive,” says Rachael Moore, a professional river guide and kayaker from New Zealand.

Rachael has been involved in her country’s whitewater scene for 16 years, and despite standing just 5 feet 4 inches tall, she’s a giant in the sport. Rachael, one of the world’s top river guides, has led trips down class 5 rapids in more than 14 countries across the globe. She spends half her year in New Zealand, training the next generation of river guides, and maintains that modern New Zealanders have a deep appreciation for the land and sea—a respect, she says, passed down from the island’s Maori people, who consider themselves “people of the land.” As she puts it, “growing up here connects us with the natural elements in a very fundamental way.”

The result? Almost any time of year, you’ll find Kiwi women running the rivers, exploring the mountains, and riding the waves of their home turf, dubbed “N. Zed.” These women are developing a worldwide reputation for strength, independence, and overall competence when it comes to extreme and adventure sports.

Although New Zealand was, in 1893, the first country to grant women the right to vote, the enthusiasm for equality in sport has developed much more slowly. “New Zealand has always had a culture of tough, practical folk, but we’ve definitely had our gender-role splits along with that,” says Rachael. Only recently have women stepped en masse into mainstream sports—they’ve already come to dominate netball, for one, now played almost exclusively by females. The trend is also playing out in New Zealand’s burgeoning culture of adventure sports.

From her involvement in the industry, Rachael has seen female participation in river running undergo major changes in the last 15 years. “The number of women involved in teaching outdoor pursuits and guiding rafts now, compared to when I began, has increased radically,” she says. Rachael attributes this to the fact that, “while New Zealand as a country becomes more understanding of the equality of our genders, outdoor industries are becoming more attractive for women.” She loves that the technical school that produces the majority of new river runners has a 50-50 ratio of women to men this year.

As for the future of Kiwi women in adventure sports, Rachael believes role models are the answer, and she hopes her own leadership in the river community will get even more women out there.

–Brooke Johnson