Matakitaki River

No cow or farm photo's today - instead I went down town with my camera, and went just out of town to the Matakitaki River bridge. This bridge is situated on State Highway 6, just south of where I live.

I drove across the bridge, parked my car, and then ran back to the middle of the bridge when there was no traffic coming. I quickly took a couple of shots, and then ran back to my car, just as a big truck and trailer unit was coming onto the bridge. There isn't any room on the bridge for people to walk along it, so it was really a bit dangerous doing what I did - however, this photo shows the result that I wanted.

The Matakitaki River is a upper tributary of the Buller River, it flows north and west for 65 kilometres from its source north of the Lewis Pass, joining the Buller at Murchison. It has one major tributary, the Glenroy River.

The river has two excellent whitewater sections on it, and they are frequently paddled. The "Middle Matakitaki" section is about 10km up the valley from Murchison, and is Grade/Class 2+, with some excellent play spots. The "Lower Matakitaki" section is a short distance up the river from Murchison, and is a short technical run pushing Grade/Class 3+ at medium flows, Grade/Class 4 at higher flows.

A lot of tourists come from all over the world for the trout fishing that the river is known for. The trout fishing season runs from October to May.