Arahura River

We're at the infamous Hokitika now - the centre of kayaking in New Zealand - at the heart of the West Coast.
We ran the Arahura two days ago - wow!

The river is only accessable by helicopter - meaning quite a dent in the funds, but definitely worth the money! We flew 12km up the river (taking about 10-15mins). The chopper flew directly over the river meaning that we could scout from the air and get a good idea of what was ahead ..... i've learnt, however, that rapids look much smaller from the sky!: 'ripples' in the water from above turned out to be meaty grade 3+/4 from the ground - features that looked big from up high were feckin' HUGE from the river banks!
The river starts with a some challenging boulder gardens - winding and steep - mostly read and run. Then came the first of the three gorges. This contained some narley rapids and three fairly sizeable waterfalls. Alot of scouting was required, as was some portaging. All went well with no serious slip ups; i had a scare at the second waterfall were i almost missed my line and narrowly avoided some serious hole-time. Tanner had some fun on a particular drop, he mannaged to get an impressive stern-stall with his Mystic after missing his boof, (He swears he was just showing off but we know it wasnt by any means intentanal playboating!)
After the first gorge came a nice grade 3 stretch with some bouncy read and run hydrolics, all very continuous - really cool. This, followed by "The Billiards"; serious looking stuff. Big drops and nasty looking seives (the final drop has been classed a grade 6) - we ran the first of the three rapids ... this was challenging enough ... and portaged the others. This lead into the second gorge (grade 4 - similar to the first gorge).
A nice grade 2 'cool-down' section came next and then finally the third gorge. The first of these rapids, "the cesspit", was gigantic. After a long debate we decided not to run it. The portage around this feature was an adventure of its own - we had to climb rocks, duck under trees, cross a stream then seal-launch of a 5/6m vertical cliff then battle to must-make eddy below!
The rapids below this feature were pretty intense even without running 'the Cesspit': A 2m drop lead into a tight 300m S-bend - a very bouncy grade 4 ..... it most certainly had the "whoop" factor!

A really nice run - perfect day - best day I've had in New Zealand yet.