on the Whanganui
We are spending tonight in one of NZ’s many Department of Conservation (DOC) huts. This particular hut is about 40 kms down the Whanganui River from where we started our journey this morning and about 50 kms from where we will finish it on Monday afternoon. The Whanganui River Journey is one of NZ’s Great Walks, which is sort of like a top ten list of NZ’s best hikes.
River canoeing is a lot different from lake canoeing. The Whanganui is pretty slow; there’s no rapids stronger than a class one, but lakes don’t have any rapids at all. All our stuff is sealed up in big waterproof barrels, so when we shoot a rapid and water comes in (and it does), it doesn’t really matter too much. Our outfitter, Mark, who knows this river well enough to draw a map from memory, told us to head for the inverted V in the river, as that’s there all the water is going, so every time we come up to rough water, that’s what we look for. It’s pretty satisfying to shoot through a rough rapid without getting too wet and pretty terrifying when you make a mistake and the canoe turns a bit too much. Our people curse is still going strong; we were going through a rapid today in front of a campsite where 30 or more people were staying and I almost dumped us in the drink. We’d just switched ends of the canoe, and I was still in paddle-without-thinking mode and we nearly tipped. Scared the crap out of me.
Other than that, the river is beautiful. There’s big, slow patches where the whole river is as smooth as glass and reflects the hillsides, which are steep, and it looks incredible. This was an expensive trip, but it goes. The whole point of the trip is to have fun, do things we’ve never done before. We’ll save money in India and SE Asia and if we don’t, well, I guess we’ll see you in June.
Tags: New Zealand, Travel, Whanganui River
awrichner
i love river canoeing. no (or at least few) portages!!!! 🙂
not a one, it was a nice way to travel