KEY POINTS:
This has been a year of tragedy on New Zealand's unpredictable rivers.
It has ended as it began on the Waimakariri River: at the start of January, the river claimed the lives of a promising rugby player, 16-year-old Sioa Taiulu, and a father-of-three, Larry Pau, 26.
Six pupils and teacher Tony McClean from Elim Christian College in Howick died in a flash flood while canyoning on the Mangatepopo River near Turangi in April.
Two weeks later, English tourist Emily Jordan, 21, died when she was trapped underwater in the Kawarau Gorge, near Queenstown.
Mother of four Lisa Marie Gould, 36, was swept away in the Motueka River that same week while trying to save the life of her 10-year-old son.
A West Coast hunter died trying to cross the flooded Haast River in south Westland.
And Annmarie Lee, 39, was swept to her death when she and her husband tried to swim across the rain-swollen Karamea River while tramping in Kahurangi National Park.
A Chinese tourist in her 40s was trapped under a jet boat after it flipped over on the Shotover River near Queenstown.
And two people have died in separate accidents on the Kaituna River near Rotorua: 58-year-old Catherine Farrington drowned in January, then 66-year-old Indian tourist Madhu Shah died when he was thrown from a raft last month.
