On November 2nd I Ieft the home country and flew 30 hrs and 15 min to Kiwi-a-gogo land. The adventure started quite quickly whilst waiting for a delayed United Flight. For those that have not flown with United I suggest taking a pass on this airline, myself and the rest of the cargo (passengers?) where squeezed into a small plane for the 1.5 hour flight to Washington D.C. Since we were late the rest of the cattle and I had to run to the next Terminal to catch the next flight to Los Angeles. The plot thickened as we sat on the plane for another hour and half to technical difficulties. At this point myself and the rest of the cattle, that where headed down under realized we would be missing our connecting flight. Upon arriving at LAX with 20min to spare and with my flight four terminals over (reached by bus) I knew I was not going to make the flight. When I arrived at the QANTAS desk, they were very understanding and re-booked my flight. If you ever fly over seas I highly recommend QANTAS, the food was delicious, the leg room copious, and the movie selection substantial. After dinner I settled in for the relaxing 14hr flight to Sydney. Arriving in Sydney it was an 8hr layover till my next flight, so caught up on some much needed sleep. After another 4.5 hour flight, I arrived in Wellington on November 4th effectively skipping Monday, and short my luggage. But who cares no one likes Monday anyway. For the next 2 days I stayed at the Rosemere Backpackers hostel, a lovely old building in the heart of windy Wellington. After a 2 day wait I headed out bright and early for the 4hr bus to Ohakune. Along the way I had my eyes glued to the window at the beautiful, yet rainy scenery shooting past me. In Ohakune I was picked up by Phil and Niam and driven to the Canoe Safaris Base. There I met Simon the owner, Grant, and Laura both head guides. After a short meet and great I moved into my temporary living accommodation. But it was only a short rest because the next day would be my first river trip... The Whanganui riverThe Whanganui (pronounced Fonganui) is very important to the Maui. It was created when the mountain Taranaki left his brothers in the central North Island and travelled to the sea. His traveling caused a massive rift to open and water to fill that rift, thus the Whanganui River was born. The River was first explored by Tomatea, who travelled up the river and on into the central plateau My first trip was a gas! It was hot and sunny most of the time, and the river stayed flowing fast. The rapids are numerous but easy class 1. The scenery however is 5 stars. Right off the bat on our 3 day trip the river drops into the famous Whanganui River Gorge with high walls and steep sides reaching several hundred meters above the river floor. There are plenty of birds: Kiwi, Tui, KuKoo, King Fisher and hawks to name a few. As well as a variety of fish: Rainbow, and Brown trout and eels. The Whanganui river has a few very important cultural sites. These sites often are to do with the river boats that used to take the wealthy and affluent on cruses. They also have to do with the old (and new farms) along the river. One of the more famous sites along the river is the Bridge to Nowhere. The Bridge to Nowhere was initially created to service the then growing farming community in the Mangapurua valley. However when the bridge was finally built in the mid-1930s no one was living in the Valley as the government had decided it was too costly to deliver goods up the river. The bridge sat in disrepair until the 80s when tourism in the area started up. The Bridge is now a center peace for summer tourism in the area. Rangitikei RiverThe Rangitikei River or for you Lord of the Rings fans, the Anduin is probably in my top 5 ever canoed rivers. The River is at the bottom of a very deep canyon sometimes reaching as high as 500m and gets as low as 150m. The River has several sections ranging from class 4 to class 2. Since it was a staff river trip we would be covering what we would normally do in 2 days in 1. The idea was that we should get to know the river as we had a trip on it in a few days’ time. The three of us; Grant, Eric and myself (1 canoe and 1 kayak) where dropped off at our put in by Simon, and immediately you sense another world-ness about the place. As we dropped in to the Gorge it quickly became apparent that this section was way more fun to paddle in a canoe then a kayak. With hard eddy lines and tight rapids it was the most fun I had had paddling white water, in a canoe in a long time. In the kayak it was a little on the easy side, however the amazing scenery made up for that. We had a good 2 hours of sun until it passed on to the other side of the gorge, as the sun departed it brought rain but that didn’t dampen our spirits. Along the way we explored several ravines, where we saw blue ducks (a very rare bird in new Zealand), and water falls. Further down the river we stopped at the White Cliff Rocks. These rocks grew out of the Ground at a rate of 1 meter every thousand years. They are the largest collection of mud rocks in New Zealand and the second largest in the world.
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February 2021
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