The Mokihinui is a brilliant packraft trip. You can walk in from the west, stay a night and paddle out. You can head in from the Buller end by bike or foot on the Old Ghost Road, then hop on the river where your skills dictate. If the river isn’t in flood, everything is portageable. If in flood, it not a wise place to be in a packraft.
Thanks to Martin Roberstson for the original writeup. Edits by Dan Clearwater and more info from Sandra Hyslop. All photos Martin Roberstson unless otherwise creditied
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Shuttle
This is most commonly done as a walk-in paddle out trip but there are also options for through trips.
At Mokihinui take Mokihinui Road to the Old Ghost Trail Carpark. Backtrack 50m and familiarise yourself with the take out.
On Foot
It s a pleasant walk up a well graded track that is part of the Old Ghost Trail. Just watch out for Bikers, who are most likely to be coming down-valley! After about 15km you will see the occasional opportunity to drop to the river and start paddling for a shorter trip. Once you reach Specimen Creek you can drop down before the bridge and scramble down to the river. Alternatively carry on to overnight camp on the flats. There is also a hut above Specimen Creek that needs to be booked and is popular with those on the Trail.
On the River
In summer flows, it is more packraft-friendly with a few rapids up to Class III+. But like many West Coast rivers the paddling difficulty increases significantly with flow. At higher flows there may be half a dozen rapids that reach class IV.
At the Forks there is a large river flat. This was formed by sedimentation after the 1929 earthquake blocked the river and filled it with the large blocks that make section between the forks and Specimen Creek the most challenging, with III+/IV paddling depending on flows.
In 2023 there were a few logs about, so be thorough with your scouting.
Just above Specimen Creek, there’s another chunky rapid that is worth a scout. Below there, the river gradually eases to a few Class III and lots of contemplative calm stretches.
Watch out for the rapid after Rough and Tumble Creek. There’s debris from an old bridge here. It needs a scout, but usually is goes ok on river right.
Whilst the best rapids are near the top there is enough to keep you interested the whole way down with rapids all the way to the take-out.
In spring the river is powerful and pushy, but by summer it’s a lot more packraft-friendly.
Below the take-out it is just a float but you could grovel down to the excellent Gentle Annie campground (with Pizza oven for DIY Pizza).
The Gauge
The Gauge is Mokihinui River at Welcome Bay.
30 cumecs is a good low packrafting flow, with some good surf spots.
Log your trip so we can build more flow recommendations!
Other Options
Walk-in from Lyell via the Old Ghost Road mountain biking route is an option. The whitewater here is generally considered a bit much for Bikerafting.
The MÅkihinui North Branch (IV) is a great 3-4 day loop which includes this main section of river.
The South Branch has been done by Deane Parker and co, from the Lyell end. It looked like some hard bushbashing, some nice steep boulder garden rapids, plus some sections where the river just sieved out. Deane’s video is titled “South Fork Moki’ – don’t go there!’ which probably sums it up ;0)
Came in after running the North Branch from Johnson hut. Definitely on the low side but very doable. Some epic surfing on the way down we probably spent ~1hr at one hole/wave feature. The River Right is the best/clearest way to run the rapid with the bridge debris in.
Three of us walked into the forks. The walk took about 4 hours. The paddle out about half of that. Great section for pack rafters with easy walking on the OGR track. We had hoped that the rain the day before might have added some flow to the river. Sadly not. Everything was runnable even at low flow. Great trip.
Went in after a large rain cycle four days before. Spent two nights at specimen hut and enjoyed a day exploring before floating down. Entered via walking directly down specimen creek which required wading in thigh deep water, higher levels may make this uncrossable/dangerous to get to river. Not really any options to enter anywhere above specimen hut until right below Mokihinui forks. Enjoyable flows, but can’t understate that getting back to trail is not really a feasible option if the upper stretch is too much for you to handle. Helped my wife portage several rapids and I would run them in my boat. Below large bridge that collapsed almost a century ago the rapid has some exposed steel that was fairly obvious at my flows, could be a problem if they were barely covered. Overall a challenging, fun, committing run.