Oparara river

The Oparara is situated just north of Karamea on the west coast, though unlike most west coast runs this river runs through Kahurangi national park which is quite a different chunk of land to most of the coast.The Oparara has more in common with the golden bay runs. You start off with really scenic flat water with an amazing limestone arch over the river the moria gate, soon after this the river gorges up. It has

a lot of timber and portages in the 1st gorge, but goes through some amazing country, we saw 3 blueducks on this trip 1 we watched for 5mins or so, it was untagged and was totally unconcerned about us . Theres some fun drops too. Heres Gus getting amongst things.

Parapara river

The Parapara river is another golden bay gem 4 hours of pretty much continuous 4+ with a few portages, it is only 4km in length and drops an even 50m per km. Possibly the best part is that you take out about 5km from my favourate pub, the mussel inn, which is a must visit if your in the area. this trip Gus and i had less water than would hope for.

Wainui river 06

This little beauty doesnt run often it took a big rainfall to bring it up to runnable flow.
The Wainui is nestled on the edge of Abel Tasman national park, Golden bay. being a short sharp run that starts with a seal launch into the pool of a 60+ foot waterfall then straight into the drops.
the 1st 2 pics are of the 2nd drop a nice pair of ledges, these show how nice and junglely the area is.

Tamati T getting amongst.

This is the main drop on this run, which we have since named Labotomy. top pic, Matt p on line.
Tamati T, tried to hit an eddy at top of the drop got regected by a keeper rock, then demonstrated the wrong line,

This is the line which gave rise to the naming of this rapid,

After falling 4-5m onto his face Tamati was luckily conscious enough to grab the rope that landed on him, 20m down stream is a nasty sieve.
He ended up with 40 stiches in his forehead. Unfortunatly this trip basically finished his paddling career, taking months to fully recover.
Makes you wonder just how good is my helmet and safety backup?
We were luckily trackside and 20min from the cars, often this is not the case.