Upper Whataroa

The Lower Whataroa (see previous Whataroa post) left me wanting more and luckily there is more! The day after I did Perth we flew up the Upper Whataroa and had an amazing time. The upper was fun big water grade IV+/- stuff that when tacked onto the lower makes for a great day out. The river was filled with huge rocks and made you feel really small, on the banks were endless amounts of house-sized rocks that seemed to go on forever.

The boats go flying

Typical Upper Whataroa rapid: big moves, bigger rocks.

The guide book tells of a wicked portage in the upper somewhere and when we got to it we were blow away. The river was filled with astronomically huge rocks. The whole river seemed to just go under and trough them. No joke, some of these freestanding rocks were big enough to have multi pitch climbs on them...HUGE!!! we spent a fair bit of time just staring and wondering how in the world they got there....

Looking down into the portage

Can't go under it, can't go through it, got to go over it...

Ben is big guy, but looks small when next to them rocks

Getting back in after the portage fest. You are looking upstream.

Ben probing a spicy looking rapid

Ben likes it hot and spicy

The transitions between the upper and the lower is a place called the Portals of Doom and it is at the end of a boxed in gorge. The Portals of Doom can not be paddled (if you like breathing) or portaged so one must walk the full gorge via the tramping track. You walk all the way to the bottom of the gorge and then get a nice treat, for you can easily paddle back up and take a look at the Portals of Doom from below.

Looking back up at the reason for our portage


Johno going up to have a look see. Amazing photo taken by Ben.

We took a nice lunch break and then bombed down the lower run.


- Richard