Part 2 of 3 - Canoeing the Whanganui River

A family at the Quaker settlement in Whanganui successfully convinced us to do a 3-day canoe trip down the Whanganui River. It's listed as one of New Zealand's top ten "great walks" even though it isn't a walk at all. Basically that means it's on the must-do list for the outdoor enthusiast. This was our first "great walk" because they tend to be a little out of our budget, but we decided to do this one. We hired a canoe and gear from an outfitter called Blazing Paddles (recommended to us by Mandy and Nigel). On Sunday morning we showed up, packed our gear and food into waterproof barrels, and left Lu (our car) behind at the outfitter while we were transported to our launch site. Nearly all of their canoes were already on the water for the weekend, so we were the only people leaving on Sunday. This was excellent timing on our part because it meant that there were few other people on the river with us and we didn't have to constantly worry about passing or being passed. It started raining just as we were putting the canoe in the water, and then it cleared up for the rest of the day! The weather was perfect.



After about 6 hours of canoeing we stopped at John Coull Hut for the night. We were hoping to get a bed in the hut instead of having to use the tent we rented. There were only two other people who stayed at the hut with us that night. They were a nice British couple who were also doing a three day trip.



Sunday night, the two friendly hut wardens showed us the incredible display of long-tailed bats that appears each night like clockwork. Let me remind you that we spent two months trying to catch long-tailed bats. In that time we caught TWO and I think I saw (fleetingly) a total of about 7 bats flying around. Mostly it was just too dark to see them against the pine trees. We did hear them with a bat detector on most nights, but we rarely saw them. At this particular hut along the Whanganui River, there were at least EIGHT bats flying around above the trees near the hut before it was even dark! We were so amazed that we didn't even think to try and take pictures. We really wished we'd had a bat detector to hear all of them!After about 10 minutes, they all left and went to forage elsewhere for the night. Ai!

It poured on Sunday night and we slept horribly with visions of our canoe floating off down the raging, risen river, so we finally went and checked on our canoe at 5 am. We just turned it over and brought our paddles up, which we should've done to begin with.



Monday was just as beautiful as Sunday on the river. I never once saw trash in this river and we passed waterfalls every 10 or 15 minutes. There were lots of grey ducks (they look like female mallards) and goats along the river. The ducks are welcome but the goats are not. They hunt them from canoes in the winter to keep their numbers down.



Monday's canoeing was broken up by a hike to the Bridge to Nowhere. It's exactly what it sounds like. You can only get to it by hiking several kilometers or boating up/down the river and still hiking a few kilometers. The bridge was completed just in time for the last farmer to hike his was out of the wilderness that was his farm and let it return to bush. That's me on the Bridge to Nowhere.



On Monday night we stayed at another hut along the river. This time it was at a marae, which is a sacred Maori space with a meeting house. Our instructions from Blazing Paddles described a welcome ceremony that we would be expected to participate in, but we didn't encounter anything of the sort. Disappointingly, the only people around seemed to be very engrossed in weedwhaking. The marae was beautiful and had nice facilities. We stayed in a building next to the meeting house (pictured below).



That evening we played cards by candlelight with the lovely British couple who had the same itinerary. There was also a group of 10 other people there but there were still enough beds. No bats there, though.



It rained again on Monday night, but then was beautiful and clear for most of our last day. The biggest rapids are right at the end of the third day. Amazingly, it seemed to pour rain and blow like mad for about 5 minutes when we were trying to get through rapids. It certainly made it more challenging! We made it through all of the rapids right side up but did take on quite a bit of water on the last one. We were bailing the canoe as we pulled up to our pickup spot. We parted ways with our British friends and were picked up by Blazing Paddles with two other canoeists just as it started to pour. We both fell asleep in the truck on the way back.

After moving our gear back into Lu, we headed off to organize our next adventure: Part 3 of 3 - Tongariro Crossing.

Carrie