When I awoke we were in Kumara and I was plesently suprised with the weather. Check out these shots of the Southern Alps and the Hokitika River....
From Hokitika the Styx River is situated about 15km past the Kokatahi settlement. After crossing the Styx River twice you will soon arrive to the gate to the Styx Valley. This gate leads to a 4WD track which takes you to a well sign posted track, where in which the walk in starts. There is some excellent boating on the Styx which should be enjoyed by all whose ability extends this far. It pays, like any Coast river, to go with some locals who know the river. If you have not been here before, especially the top section where in which we walked to, the gradient of the river and the horizon lines can be quite intimidating, if you do not know the nature of the drops or the lines associated with them. Lucky for our team we were with local West Coast paddler, Jordan Searle and also Wills Martin who has paddled this run, I assume, many times before, so we were sweet as!
The walk in to the lower/upper section of the Styx takes just over an hour, however if you are looking to get amongst the upper section expect to walk for about two hours. We were in good hands and all in all the day was incident free, reasonably. The weather was typical for a good day on the coast and despite the little sleep and the cold I was battling from the day was super. Here are some photo's....In hind sight I should have got out alot more and shot some however we had to be back in Christchurch for B-rains red card so the time didn't allow.
Chur
Checking out the lead in
