The Whanganui Journey - A 5 Day Paddle

New Zealand kind of has a genius way of both making money off of tracks through nature, and of funneling us tourists into parts of nature which have the infrastructure to support us. What I am referring too are formally known as the Great Walks of New Zealand, and include 10 tracks scattered throughout the country. The Whanganui Journey is one of the Great "Walks" but is not actually a walk , is a 3-8 day ride down the Whanganui river on some sort of self propelled floating machine such as a canoe. This sounded awesome to us as you can actually take as much gear/food/booze as you want without physical consequence, provided you drink booze responsibly. This, the Journeys description and google images of the place, signaled a must-do for us.

We decided to do a 5-day section of the river which starts just outside of the town of Tamaranui, and travels 160km through Whanganui National Park, ending at another town called Pipiriki. The first two days of the Journey featured frequent class 1-2 rapids through mostly hilly farm land. The latter three required a lot more paddling on a lazy river, but travel through very scenic dense native brush with no civilization in sight.

Preparing for this type of paddle we really just needed to prebook campsites along the river, and contact a canoe rental company (we went with Tamuranui Canoe Company), which generally provide a canoe, all the equipment (paddles, dry barrels, life jackets), and a shuttle from the end of the paddle to the start. Compared to other backpacking trips we have done in the past, packing for this was easy. The canoe rental company provided us with dry barrels to store 160 liters of stuff, so we were able to bring all of our camping gear, normal food, and beer.

The day before we started our paddle, the rental company rang us, and asked if we were cool with having a solo kayaker tag along with us. We said yes. The solo kayaker turned out to be an 18 year old German kid named Marten who like us, was also spending close to year work traveling around New Zealand and he was a beauty.

Day 1 – Rapids

After a quick orientation in safety and canoe skills, we (Lisa, Keegan and Marten) started paddling at about 10 am right from the Tamuranui Canoe Company. It took us about 4 hours of paddling to reach the first campsite at Poukaria. The day was great, fast moving river and sets of class 2 rapids every 5-10 minutes. We saw lots of sheep, and rolling hills and stopped at a lavender farm for a quick coffee. Sun was in full force and we all got sunburnt, Especially Marten, the rental company supplied him with an open-faced kayak.

Day 2- Pasture to Jungle

The morning of the second day was much like the first, rolling hill scenery and had tons of rapids. We stopped at a sweet waterfall for lunch. In the afternoon, pastureland slowly made way for jungle, and the banks of the river became stepper and more rocky. It pissed rain for the last hour of our paddle giving the river a mystic feel. We camped in the village of Whakahoro (Wh is pronounced with the “f” sound). The campsites along the trail were pretty lux as they were all well setup with outhouses, roofed kitchen areas, and rain water collectors for drinking water. Whakahoro also had a cafe with cheap baked goods that were awesome.




Day 3 – The Blue Duck

Day three and four were the most scenic although required the most physical paddling. This stretch of river is free of markings of civilization, aside from a hut at the John Coull campsite, where we stayed on the third night, and a 40 meter high concrete bridge in the middle of nowhere. The banks of the river along this section where generally vibrant moss colored rock with dense native bush atop, which Marten and I agreed were simular to Fjords in Norway, if Norway was near the equator.

We had a fortuitous wildlife siting, thanks in large to a party of Kiwi canoers who shared our camping itinerary on the Journey. Two of the three of them were actually conservationists at a bird sanctuary in the Taranaki region and knew a bunch about birds. This ment they had a keen eye and ears for birds and their songs. We had stopped at the Mangapurua Campsite for lunch, were we found the group of Kiwi canoers who were excited as hell watching a duck hunt in the rapids just of shore. Turns out this particular duck was an endangered Blue Duck. To us this was like a normal duck, except had a distinct blue hue. But excitement is contagious, and you don't see endangered species everyday, so we also got excited as hell and took a bunch of pictures of it. Also, this duck was not scared of people at all, it hung out right next to canoes, waiting for the respective canoe owner to return to their canoes, take off, thus stirring up dirt and the bugs it contained. Its not hard to believe that a duck which does not camouflage well, and who isn’t scared of humans, is endangered.

Day 4 – A Bridge to Nowhere

Halfway through the fourth day, we hiked up a walking track which heads up from the river along a stream to massive 40-meter tall concrete bridge spanning the stream in the middle of nowhere, literally known as “The Bridge to Nowhere”. The bridge was built in the 1930’s to service a settlement which was actually abandoned in the 1940s. It is kind of ironic that the Bridge to Nowhere now gets more use then it ever did, thanks to a steady stream of tourists brought into “nowhere” via canoes or jetboats. All of which brought in so they can observe true nowhereness, and laugh at the poor planning of pre-war governement civil planners. But like our previous rants about the tourist-lemming mentality, and I guess, in the spirit of the New Zealand great walks, If you build it they will come, and eventually nowhere will become somewhere.

That night we camped at Tīeke Kāinga which is an active Pā (Fortified Mauri Settlement). It was really neat as the whānau (Mauri Family) who live and look after the Pā held a pōwhiri (welcome ceremony) for all visitors. This was neat as they welcomed us both in Mauri and English, then sang a bunch of songs for us. In return we were expected to rebut the speech and sing them songs. Something that really surprised us was how many of the Kiwi visitors knew Mauri songs, and had simple vocabularies. The non-bird-conservationist in the group from Taranaki, who was not of Mauri descent, spoke on behalf of us, all in Mauri. His speech was followed up by a sing-along led by one of the bird-conservationists, again on behalf of us.

While this might not have been a regular occurrence at pōwhiris in Tīeke Kāinga, judging by the appreciation of the whānau, and the fact that most of the visitors that night were overwhelmingly kiwi on a journey designed for tourists, it kind of made us reflect on how first nations are treated back home in Canada. Perhaps learning a few songs or even just basic greetings in a North American indigenous language might go a long way in breaking down some of the “cultural barriers” between indigenous and non-indigenous North Americans which still exist today.

Day 5 – Last Day

With heavy overnight rain, the river had come up a meter or two and was running much faster. This meant that while we could travel about twice as fast as the previous two days, most of the super fun rapid that were supposed to be their were not. Regardless we still had a blast and took a bunch of pictures, and still almost got bucked off the boat by a set of rapids. We were met at Pipiriki by a shuttle bus, which returned us to Tamaranui.

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The trip was awesome and we would recommend it to anyone. It also was surprisingly uncrowded once on the river, as the rivers flow does most of the work for you. The trip left us wanting to navigate through more rapids, which we will most certainly do in the near future.Read more