Whanganui River Journey

We met Ash and Liz at Taumarunui for our five day, 150km river journey down the Whanganui, through its grade 2 rapids on two man canadian canoes to Papriki. We packed all our food, tents, clothing etc into waterproof barrels, strapped them into the canoes and off we went. We soon got the hang of the canoes - power at the front and steering at the rear. We were straight into rapids which were easy but great fun. Each day we travelled futher and futher from civilisation, the Whanganui gets as remote as you can in the North Island. The journey was truely amazing, we camped when we could, collected driftwood during the day and cooked on open fires at night. The river got more and more impressive as the days went by, winding its way through steep canyons. We paddled for about 6 hours a day stopping for lunch only top be chased back onto the saftey of the river by angry wasps every time. The weather was gorgeous every day. One one night a few days in we stayed at one of the DOC back country huts, but this was a mistake, having spent days seeing no-one we were suddenly confronted with loads of people, some who had canoed in and others arriving by jet boat. Needless to say the atmosphere was out of sync with our wilderness experience and after a restless night thanks to snorers we decided to camp for the rest of the trip. This ment spending 10 hours paddling the next day to reach the camp site past the hut we were supposed to stay in, but it was all worth it. The final day was made exciting by tackling the biggest rapids on the river. With our days of expereince we handled them like pros, however mine and Franks canoe almost sunk, (they are open top). Tired but thouroghly stoked at completing such a journey we finally reached the end after five days and were taken back to our cars. If you ever come to New Zealand, this is a must do.