Canoeing the Whanganui

After New Plymouth it was time to do something a little more relaxing, so we headed across to Taumaranui on the Whanganui River. The Maori say that the Whanganui was created when Taranaki left the central mountains and stormed across country, and the river is the longest in NZ. It's beautiful, too; winding through leafy limestone gorges with masses of green bush on the banks.

We'd hired two canoes. I had a little yellow kayak to myself, while R&E had a Canadian canoe for two in which all our stuff was loaded. We were hoping to stay in huts during our three-day trip but had to take a tent in case the huts were full or we didn't make them. Then there was food, a couple of boxes of wine, and so on!

On our way down to the drop-off point we encountered a small problem - a hole in the road! A road crew were trying to put pipes in the road and instead of digging up half of it so that people could get past, they'd dug up the whole width thinking that nobody would be using the narrow gravel track. Wrong! One of the guys came across and informed us it would probably be two hours before we could pass. I was fuming, but R&E - more used to Kiwi roads by now - sat back resigned. Luckily they decided the bottom of the hole was too soggy to do anything with, so they filled it up again and we were off in just 20 minutes.

The trip went well, and we alternately paddled along perfectly-flat stretches of river, negotiated baby rapids, or drifted on the current. I only fell out once, and R&E didn't fall out at all. We made both the huts and spent time with the six other travellers on the river those days, a British couple and four Danish guys. On day two we visited the Bridge to Nowhere, built when they wanted to build up the area (the plan failed). It was all fun and nicely relaxing, though we also felt we'd done some exercise for once!