Whanganui River 15-18th March

Canoeing
This is the only "Great Walk" which isn't a walk but a trip down the river by canoe. We did 123km in 4 days in a canadian canoe, with NO guide. The man who dropped us off at the start asked us if we had any experience... "not much" we replied... "no problems, go and do a spin around that rock and then we can go and look at the 1st rapid around the corner" !!!!!!! Apart from a few tips and telling us that the big 3 rapids are on the last day, we had no other instructions.



Nik's in the back steering and I'm up front trying to "read the water". We don't see another person for the next 36hrs as there is no one in the campsite. On the 2nd day we enter the National Park which is mainly a gorge. It's beautiful, very green and lots of ducks. There are tree grave yards all along the edge in the mud. When we arrive at the hut for our 2nd night, there's a warden there but no one else. At dusk the warden shows us the long tailed bats, which are one of NZ's 2 native mammals - the other being the short tailed bat.

Our 3rd day is quite short, but we stop off to do a walk to the Bridge to Nowhere. It was built after the 1st WW for settlers up the valley, but they all left in the 50's and now the bush has taken over. On our last night we stay in a hut which is on a marae (Maori tribal meeting house). Unfortunately there's no one here at the moment, so we don't get to eat with the locals.

Our last day arrives and the biggest rapids!


Just when we thought we were getting the hang of things - that we could handle the big ones - we came up against a monster of a rapid. From where I was sitting it seemed to tower over Caity's head - but by then it was too late to do anything about it. Within a couple of seconds we'd "turtled." It all happened in slow motion. From where I was sitting it looked as if Caity jumped over board before we actually capsized. If there wasn't an inevitability about it - I could have sworn as Caity abandoned ship she actually capsized us. She's giving me death stares as I write this. Anyway so there we were floating downstream, miles from anywhere. Just us, the dead trees on the river bank and the river itself. It was actually quite comfy drifting downstream in the water hanging onto the canoe. For a few moments it didn't actually occur to me that we'd have to make some kind of rescue effort. Fortunately a jet boat came along about a minute later with a boat load of people on boat. This British woman leans over the side and says " have you been drifting like that for long ? " I'm tempted to say three days. But the captain of the boat beats me to it.