The Kaituna River runs through my earliest memories. I learned to kayak here, shared family picnics on its banks while we chased cockabillies in the shallows, and spent after-school hours swimming rapids and jumping from cliffs with friends until the last hours of sunlight. It’s hard for me to imagine it ever being anything but free-flowing. Even when I wasn’t in the river, it was always present—a constant roar drifting into our garden where I played with my brothers, its mist curling through the hills outside my bedroom window each morning. There were too many nights to count spent running down the river trail in the dark or paddling night laps, finding our way by the thousands of glowworms scattered along its banks.
In December 2024, the New Zealand government passed the Fast-track Approvals Act, allowing significant infrastructure and development projects to speed up necessary approvals by combining multiple consents under one process. This accelerated pace of development, with reduced opportunities for public scrutiny, enabled landowner group Taheke 8C to apply for a fast-track hydro dam in the Kaituna Lower Gorges. The dam would drown Pari Whakahihi (Awesome Gorge) which is the first of three gorges in the Lower Kaituna, and everything above it up to Trout Pool Falls. Hearing about the project felt like a punch to the gut. Along with the rest of the Okere Falls community, I didn’t find out about it until the process was already well underway.
As a kid I used to spend hours playing in the current below Trout Pools, watching the water move steadily downstream. The proposed dam would starve Pari Tukino (Gnarly Gorge), and turn the lower river through Pari Kohukohu (Smokey Gorge) into a pattern of artificial surges. Behind the wall, stagnant water would likely breed toxic algae, habitats for native fish, birds, and forest species would be damaged, and tuna and koura migration routes—used for centuries—would be severed.
The Kaituna literally means food (kai) and eel (tuna) and once provided a plentiful food source for the Māori communities who lived here. The Kaituna is a breeding ground for eels prior to their migration out to sea. My Dad owns a Hinaki—a traditional eel trap—but these days it’s collecting dust in our garage as tuna becomes scarcer. He tells stories of camping out by the river on the farm where he lived as a kid in Te Puke, catching eels and cooking them over a fire.
The gorges of the Kaituna hold a spiritual significance to those who spend the time to notice. Photo: Barnabus Young
Beyond the environmental toll, the dam would destroy a world-class whitewater kayaking section internationally renowned for its stunning beauty and fun rapids. Gnarly Gorge, the most technical of the three gorges and the only Grade 5 section of the Kaituna, would have no water left to paddle down. It holds deep emotional significance for many kayakers here.
When I was thirteen, Okere Falls community lost a core member, Louise Jull, to a kayaking accident in Gnarly Gorge. Lou spent a lot of time babysitting me and my brothers, took me kayaking, and was my biggest inspiration to chase this passion. Lou’s memory is always present in the Lower Gorges and holds so much meaning for the local kayaking community. Her energy and spirit are felt the most deeply between those moss-lined walls; losing these gorges would feel like losing her all over again.
Smokey Gorge, my favourite of the three, is known for its incredibly fun whitewater, yet even this section would be ruined by the dam. The unpredictable, fluctuating releases would make it hard to paddle safely if at all and no doubt cause changes to the classic rapids. I’ve chased endless summers kayaking rivers around the world, but these gorges are still the most beautiful place in the world.
Taheke 8C says the hydro project would generate between 8 and 16 megawatts of electricity, enough to power over 12,000 homes. For those of us who know the river, it’s hard to reconcile those numbers with what would be lost.
In 1901, the government harnessed the Kaituna’s fast flowing water for one of the country’s first hydroelectric power stations. It only ran until 1936 after being called redundant and not fit for purpose. Now, the river is the domain of paddlers and trout fishers—and Whitewater NZ wants to keep it that way. Photo: Mike Dawson
The first time I paddled the Lower Gorges of the Kaituna, I was about 13 or 14. I’d heard my dad and brother talk about the rapids and how breathtaking they were, and something about those stories captured me long before I ever saw it with my own eyes. I was eager to see the rest of my home river.
One New Year’s Eve, my childhood best friend was rallying for his first Lowers lap with his dad, and I was so excited to join them with my own dad. Two more friends joined us and I remember being nervous—honestly, straight up scared at times. It was my first time running a section where you couldn’t scout the rapids; everything was blind. But my dad talked me through the lines and made it so much fun. I can still feel how perfect the rapids were. The section ignited my passion for kayaking completely. I wanted to chase that same feeling on new rivers and see more places as wild and beautiful as this one.
My first impression of the Gorges is still etched vividly in my mind. Tall, untouched mossy walls; tumbling creeks that caught gold in the sun as they fell from the sky carving shapes into the rock; golden rays of light that filtered through the thick jungle vines and ferns so that the lighting inside the narrow gorges almost had a green ambience. It’s the kind of beauty no photo would do justice and no words can capture.
Cutting through limestone rocks and dense native forest, the Kaituna carries water from Lake Rotorua and Lake Rotoiti over 50 kilometers of rapids, through gorges and out into the open, where Kaituna wetland perches above drained farmland towards Maketu. Photo: Ryan Lucas
My sense of home has always been rooted in that endless flow of green beneath the ponga and kāmahi. Fortunately, after much effort and passion from those who love the river, Taheke 8C’s most recent dam application was denied. But it doesn't guarantee the river’s safety. Without lasting protection, the Kaituna will always remain on someone's development map.
Free-flowing rivers like the Kaituna are irreplaceable. Once dammed or altered, their natural rhythm and ecosystems can never be truly restored. This river raised me. Protecting it now feels like the simplest form of reciprocity.
River is a competitive whitewater kayaker based in Okere Falls, New Zealand. When she's not chasing rivers around the world she’s living large on the Kaituna—her backyard and training ground.