Te Araroa, Days 83-86: The Whanganui River

After my side trip to hike around beautiful Mount Taranaki I met back up with my pals Ellyse and Rob to tackle the next section of the trail, the Whanganui River, together. The Whanganui River Journey is one of New Zealand’s official Great Walks, but it’s the only one done by boat instead of on foot. The river wends through Whanganui National Park, and the wilderness along it is profoundly remote – the huts and campsites along its banks are reachable by boat only, and the park as a whole has only a couple of roads and very few footpaths. Interestingly, the river itself was granted legal personhood in 2017, after over a century of activism by Maori who had fought for environmental protections.

Rob, Ellyse, and I arrived at the boat rental place, Taumarunui Canoe Hire, the afternoon before we were to set out for our paddle. We had plenty of time to pack our supplies into waterproof barrels, which we’d ultimately be lashing down into our boats for the journey. Since I knew I wouldn’t have to carry all my food on my back, I went a little bit crazy in the grocery store and basically bought the heaviest stuff in the building – does one really need that many kiwi fruits for a 5-day canoe trip? No, but I think the more relevant question is whether they will fit in the barrel.

Packin’ them barrels!

We then spend the night in a cool old cargo container (do you close the container hatch overnight or leave it open? We settle for partway, to avoid asphyxiation but allow an unobstructed current of insects). In the morning, the amazing folks who operate the canoe hire company – it’s a family business and it’s headquartered at their farm – make us coffee and give us river maps and a water safety training. We also get to play with a swarm of poodle puppies! I adopt all 8 and arrange for them to be transferred back to Pennsylvania (Scott, please prepare the kennels for our arrival). (JK, please don’t think I actually adopted 8 puppies… But that would be funny, right?)

To even out our numbers in the two-person canoes, the boat rental company has arranged to pair me with another hiker, Cam, who meets us by the boat launch in the morning. As it turns out, Cam is an Internet-famous hiker with something like 300,000 followers on Instagram. (If you’re curious, you should check him out here!) This is like being paired with Venus Williams for doubles tennis, as far as my anxiety issues are concerned. Clearly the gods have selected me as the dramatic foil in someone else’s adventure narrative. As I shake Cam’s hand and pass him an empty barrel, I think to myself, “I sure hope I don’t tip us over, or 300,000 people are going to think I’m a total sh*thead!” (If you’re reading this, it means I did not tip us over and Cam’s legions of fans were not obliged to come after me and exact revenge.)

So now a word about the Whanganui River situation itself. It rains an awful lot on the North Island, and consequently the rivers can fill quickly with rainwater and run really high and fast. Cam asks the fellow at the canoe rental when the river is running too hard for safety – he replies, “When boulders are rolling downstream next to your boat.” So that tells you something about the guy’s risk tolerance, but also suggests that the Whanganui River can move boulders, which is pretty eye-opening. Anyway, we’re told that the river is running high, and when we get to the boat ramp we can see that the water is cocoa-brown with sediment and is indeed moving at a pretty good clip. Cam tells me that he’s done a bunch of paddleboarding (including a multi-day paddle- camping expedition which sounds really cool), but that he’s never canoed before. So, I volunteer to sit in the back and steer, ensuring that if we capsize it will definitely be my fault – yay!

Cam, Rob, and Ellyse at Downes Hut, along the Whanganui River

And then we’re off, and pretty quickly we get to the first set of rapids, and I drop the f-bomb for the first of many times. So yes, this is whitewater canoeing. I’m not talking Grand Canyon rafting level, but definitely some Class III stuff, enough to raise the specter of swamping the boat and then bring dragged downstream for quite a while before being able to find anyplace to bail out and set things right. Because, as we observe, the riverbanks are submerged and all we have on either side of us are vertical canyon walls. I am filled with fervent gratitude for all the time I spent in canoes and rowboats growing up on the north shore of Long Island, and I take a deep breath and think, “I may actually be able do this without killing us! (Maybe!)”

The river in one of its calmer moments

The river moves in fast sinuous s-curves, and we take the outsides, picking up speed and plowing through choppy waves and cross-currents. The bow rears out of the water and then slaps down to let sloshing waves into the boat; sometimes we find ourselves skating sideways across whirlpools and eddies that threaten to spin the canoe around or tip us sideways and swamp us. It’s fun, and a bit scary, and it’s hard work, and the five barrels filled with my kiwi fruit cargo are definitely adding some weight and making us less nimble in the water. But the scenery is absolutely stunning, and as we speed downstream we coast past verdant cliffs, cascading waterfalls, and tiny narrow side canyons carved by tributary streams running down into the river. Swallows with their rosy breasts and iridescent blue backs sweep across the river ahead of us, diving down to nab insects. After about 20 miles of paddling we spot the sign for the John Coull Hut, where we’re spending the night, and we aim crosswise for the sloped mud landing. I turn us 180 degrees so we’re facing upstream as we coast into the bank. Land ho, mateys – time to eat some kiwis!

The gravel beach at Ngaporo Campsite

The view downstream from Ngaporo

Over the course of the next couple of days the river gradually slows but we make excellent time nonetheless, and we realize we should be able to do the entire trip in four days instead of the original five that we’d planned. On our last day, as we follow the river to its mouth in the town of Whanganui, we enter the tidal zone, where tide swells from the river’s outfall at the Tasman Sea impact the flow further upstream. We paddle up to a wooden wharf at a campsite called Hipongo Park to eat lunch and wait for high tide, when it’ll be easier to complete the final miles of the river. We climb up onto the wharf and then agree that something smells weird. After some investigation I discover that the stink is coming from a rotting chunk of flesh, about the size of a smallish rabbit, that someone has inexplicably tied to the bottom step. As the tide slowly rises, Ellyse observes that the meat glob has begun to gently float in the water. We consider and decide that it must be an official nautical instrument:

For Tidal Status Please Refer to Meat Glob.

If Meat Glob is Resting on Bottom Step of Wharf, Tide is Low.

If Meat Glob is Floating, Tide Has Risen and You May Continue on Your Journey.

-Hipongo Park Maritime Council