T canyon, Toaroha river,West coast, NZ

Toaroha canyon was first kayaked in 2011 and quickly gained reputation of one of the best runs on the westcoast of Nz.
Since the days are sort of shot in June in Nz, we started our walk in early. We left my van quarter past eight in the morning and started long and demanding ascend to the top of the land slip. It took us 2h 5'. After short break 200m exposed descent down the slip and bush bashing through thick bush followed for next hour and half.
In 3,5h we reached the river and all the suffering was forgotten instantly.
T canyon is worth all the respect.
The initial falls (13m) looks iimpressive, however we saved it for next visit.

The very first rapid indicates the character of a river. Steep, technical, narrow windy deep gorge style world class kayaking. According to the only guy in the team who paddled T canyon before, Tom Botterill, we had perfect medium flow. (Hokitika under the gorge was on 100m3/s)
The special charm to f T canyon is more than a dozen mandatory rapids which you need to paddle since the portage doesn't exist.
First 3 rapids are that kind of. The following rapid is possible to portage on river left bank. The fact I liked most is constantly clean and beautiful rapids- no manky rapids at all! Somewhere in the middle of the canyon you get to only mandatory portage (or maybe no one was crazy enough to paddle it yet?!). After balancy seal launch from left bank a few cool rapids follow before the last 3 mandatory rapids, which get proportionally bigger - 3, then 5 and the great finale -8m drop which gloriously finishes the most intimidating canyon I paddled in NZ. Since it takes less than 5 minutes to walk back up, I did it twice, took different line on the top and boofed it like a boss. Yes, that was perfect day in the office!

 First rapid of T canyon run

 Solid stroke was needed to boof the first hole, then the fun was just about to start

Rapid #3: tight 2-m boof into tight gorge, pure fun!

Intimidating 5-m drop into boily burly pool!

The recirculating boils were close to 10m away from drop...

.... And, to paddle out of all aerated boils was harder than looks on first sight!

P.s. those are the only pics we have since the phone ran out of battery due to pretty cold day!
Photo credit goes completely to Tom Botterill, many thanks again for pics and showing us the lines!