taramakau/otira rivers

The carpark is pretty high risk in terms of breakins. Don't leave anything inside your car and leave glovebox open etc so anyone can see there's nothing to nick. Having said that I've left my car there and it was fine. Crossed the Otira in Feb a yr ago, it was only knee deep max (and I am 5'3" ) but I think flows were low then. Haven't crossed the Taramakau.

Thanks for your information. I always keep an eye and ear on river crossings, walkwires (unsteady ones!), and cableways. Don't like these though.

doc car park was very full easter weekend, if you wont to have your car in a safer place while you tramp for $5 a night you can leave it in a paddock way off the road very safe by going to talk to the farmer right next door to the doc car park very help full people, river crossing easy as low water . stayed at kiwi hut 4 nights cold hut , heard kiwis calling every night ,saw 2 groups of the native parakete able to take photos , take some time to go off track while walking up this big river, you will see some great old man bush and lots of bird life

In 2005, I talked to Mr Evans who owns the farm next door to the Aickens Road End Car park. They used to allow people to park their cars on their farm for a fee but discontinued this practice as they were being woken up very late by people wanting access to the locked cage. Not sure what their current policy is. We've experienced one break in at the Morrison Footbridge car park and are very nervous about leaving our car parked at Aickens but have so far been lucky. The Arthurs Pass Backpackers may be cool about doing a shuttle or maybe even the Otira Pub people. Regarding the crossing: If there's been significant rain, the Otira will be unsafe to cross. We spent an hour on the 4th of Dec,1996 selecting and testing places to cross. A couple of days later, a woman crossed there and drowned. DoC had told us the river level was OK. Thank goodness for the Morrison footbridge and the floodtrack which DoC are now maintaining after some years of neglect.

Yep: Morrison footbridge is a godsend - and bear in mind that if you need to use the bridge, you probably won't be able to cross to Kiwi Hut in the Taramakau and will have to continue to Locke Stream / No. 3 or camp. On my only trip through, the Taramakau at Locke Stream (no 3) Hut and the Otria at Aitkins were pretty much equal (in my case probably just crossable with a party and a bloody good reason, but too dodgy for me to consider alone). Don't know if this applies as a rule-of-thumb. Taramakau can be travelled on the true left in most conditions all the way from the bridge at the base of Harper Pass to Aitkins with one exception: the Otehake. If the Otira / Taramakau are uncrosable then Otehake may well be borderline too where it meets the taramakau (required swimming on the above trip). The sidle from the Taramakau up to the Otehake footbridge is the alternative, but looked tough from where I was - anyone done this?

Oops. Locke Stream Hut is "No 4" not "No. 3" as I stated above.

You can only travel up the true right of the Otehake to the Otehake swingbridge. On the true left, the river cuts into the bank most of the way.

So if true right only up Otehake, if coming from Aickens and couldn't cross Otehake at Taramakau you'd have to backtrack and up track to Lake Kaurapataka, cross Otehake swingbridge, down true right Otehake?

Honara: did you mean true right? Opposite to what it loked like: true left looked ok, and true right bluffy from the bottom.