The Last Frontier

The East Coast of the North Island is a remote, relatively untracked, and infrequently visited area except for the multitude of hunters who jealously guard their access and favourite spots.

- Mike Dawson and Sam Roil

It is bounded to the west by Te Urewera (formerly national park), and to the North by the Raukumaras all the way up to Mount Hikurangi near the East Cape. Home to Tuhoe and Ngati Porou, the ‘coast’ runs on its on schedule and under its own set of rules. The respective areas of bush form the largest unbroken tract of native forest in the North Island. Access to Te Urewera is limited to (roughly) Lake Waikaremoana on the East side, or through the Whirinaki forest to the North West.

The remoteness of this area has left it feeling a bit like the last frontier as far as kayaking goes – it takes a long time to get there from anywhere and there are logistical challenges for some of the rivers which have already been run. However, there are several unique features of the area which have given it a semi-mythical status in some of the kayaking circles around the country. The first of these features is geological. From Napier, all the way up to Hicks Bay on the East Cape, the landforms are massive slanted ranges of sand and mud stone which slope towards the coast. This creates two things – creeks which have huge bedrock slides, following the slant of the rocks, and secondly, lots of waterfalls where the strata of the rock is broken and the creeks drop off these onto the next layer down.

These landforms have created rivers with runs on them such as the upper upper Ruakituri, the Maretu and the Waihi streams – all classic, class five kayak runs. Along with these are countless unexplored or simply unknown creeks with the same character dotted the length of the coast, just waiting for rain and a team of paddlers to discover them.