Amy's favorite...the Taipo fly-in

Hello everybody, Amy here! My turn to have a try at this bloging thing.

The Taipo river was by far my favorite river out of Hokitika on the West Coast. It was solid class IV boulder gardens with very few nasty sieves and most drops boat scoutable. After the giant house-sized boulders on the Arahura, it was a nice change to do a solid read-and-run river. We joined up with a group of really great Kiwi boaters for this heli-trip.

Pilot Bruce ties up the boats.


Mike at the put-in...you can see the extent of the boulder garden, lots of rocks but not too big.



The first scout on the Taipo.

Yan enjoying the beautiful gorges between drops.

Kevin punches a hole in Tit and Tat.

Classic Taipo. The level was great.


Richard gives the crux of the Taipo, Showcase, a try.


Not the way to run Showcase!


Mike dropping in


White-out

Mike had the best line out of the three who tried Showcase


The Taipo was a good day out, but a long day. After the first 3 or 4 hours of grade 4 boulder gardens, we still had a 15km grade 2-3 paddle out. There are a number of nice huts along the river, so a good option would be to stay the night at the halfway mark. The helicopter can even drop all your overnight gear and food at the hut on the way to the put-in!
--AMY