Trip ends in tragedy

The Motu River can be challenging for rafters when the water level rises. Photo / Daily Post

A hunting trip turned to tragedy when a group tried to raft out of a remote part of Eastern Bay of Plenty on a swollen river.

The body of Taupo plumber Terry Wayne Mason, 44, was recovered by searchers in the Motu River, 50km from Opotiki yesterday morning.

Sergeant Denis Foster said Mason was one of a group of four, flipped out of the raft on Friday afternoon.

They had been hunting in the Raukumara Ranges since Monday and were due to finish the trip at the Motu Bridge on State Highway 35 today.

Foster said it was a "leisurely six days' hunting and rafting trip".

"The party was led by an experienced rafter who had travelled the Motu River on a regular basis for the past 18 years by raft with his wife and other companions," he said.

Three of the rafters, two men and a woman, managed to get back into the raft. But they saw Mason floating downstream.

The experienced rafter and his wife were from Kawerau and the other man was from Taupo, Foster said. They could not find Mason so paddled out of the gorge about 5.30pm to raise the alarm.

A jet boat operator, who was involved in the search but declined to be named, said the river had been in flood and conditions were hazardous.

"The parties chose to come down the river when the water levels were not good. It was about 2m above normal. I understand only one or two of them was experienced. The rapids are usually about grade three to four but when the water level is high it just escalates. The water would have been hugely high in that gorge area," he said.

Rafting rivers are graded from one to six. Grade six is unrunnable and grade three and four rapids are difficult and very difficult.

Foster said a helicopter searched the river that afternoon but didn't find Mason.

Waimana Helicopters pilot Robert Fleming said he found the man in the river yesterday morning after the initial search was called off Friday night.

"We carried out a thorough search and would have had a high probability of finding someone alive. We stopped searching about 7.30pm. We resumed in the morning and found the missing person only about five or six minutes into the search, maybe about six or seven kilometres upstream from the mouth," he said.

The Motu River was the first river protected under legislation aimed at preserving wild and scenic rivers.