Quick update & Dad’s guest post: Reading the river

Days 53-57, Whakahoro to Whanganui

Kia ora anō,

71 days after taking my first steps from Cape Reinga, I have now completed Te Ika-a-Māui. This milestone of the journey, comprised of single unidirectional steps I have taken one day at a time, is still sinking in. Wellington, in its usual dramatic fashion, welcomed me first with lashings of wind on the ridge lines followed by the hottest, calmest, ‘can’t beat Wellington on a good day’ kind of day. It feels good to be home for a few days before setting off into the mountains of Te Waipounamu — looking at the elevation profile of the next 1300km, I get the feeling the past 1700 have just been a warm-up…

It’s amazing how much easier it is to upload a blog post from an actual computer. You may notice I’ve made the headings a bit bigger and added more photos. There will be more to come soon about the last two weeks on the trail, but to keep things linear here, here’s the next chapter about the five challenging, beautiful days Dad and I spent on the Whanganui awa (13-17 Jan).

You may also notice that this post is somewhat different in that I didn’t write it. Instead, I’ve handed over the paddle to my Dad to write about our experience on the river. I think Dad’s summed it up better than I ever could, and his perspectives echo my own in many ways. So, introducing the very first guest writer on the blog: Alastair/Dad! Enjoy.

Dad, Chief Steerer and Capsize Prevention Officer

Getting started

There is a moment at the beginning of any journey when all the pieces are finally in place, except one – the small but significant act of courage which you need to set off into the unknown. In the case of the Whanganui River, that act was for Alex and me to dip our paddles into the side channel of the river, his on the right, mine on the left, and ease our Canadian canoe into the current.

It was a moment which had taken several weeks to lead up to. A walk of 1000 miles may begin with a single step, but a paddle of 150 kilometres begins with a thousand steps. The impetus for our voyage had been provided by the Te Araroa Trust, who decreed that while most of Te Araroa is a walking track, this 150km section should be paddled instead. A quick look at the map suggests why – for a good part of the distance, there simply are no paths that would take you where you need to go.

Finding yourself in the middle of the rugged terrain confirms it emphatically. To walk through it seems as futile as the Bridge to Nowhere itself, whereas in a canoe you can glide through the river gorge, harking back to the time when water transport was the only practical means of making long journeys around Aotearoa.

The journey began to take tentative shape as innumerable interrelated questions were answered and then relitigated. For Alex, the first of these was, who would he do the trip with – another through-tramper, one of his friends, or his companion for the first three weeks of the trail? When would he start? Where would he enter and exit the river? In theory, there are numerous possibilities, in practice, not so many. Would he keep the paddling to a minimum, and walk or even cycle the rest – tempting for the lower reaches of the river, when the native forest gives way to poplars, willows, pasture land and pine trees? Ultimately, Alex, though much more comfortable on land than on water, went for the maximum canoe option.

Even the question of who to hire the canoe from was not straightforward. There are apparently six or seven companies renting out canoes on the Whanganui River, and we had heard good things about two in particular. In the end the choice made itself, and we never regretted our decision.

In the best tradition of Kiwi outdoor pursuits, Taumarununi Canoe Hire take care of all the logistics, and feed you enough information and enough muffins so that you can safely be let loose on the water. Any language teacher would recognise this as sound methodology, but it required a leap of faith for landlubbers like us to believe it would work. Which takes us back to our first tentative strokes in Whakahoro.

Introducing Kererū, our trusty canoe and star actor in this section

Day One: Whakahoro to Ohauora

On the river

So now the thousand pieces of the jigsaw are finally all in place. Imagine a narrow gorge with steep walls extended to the sky by ancient forest. The rock walls are striped green from all the moss, ferns and other moisture-seeking plants they host. The gorge channels whatever water flows into it from upstream, the side streams, the forest above and from the sky. The water is as green as the forest it reflects.

On the mirror surface float four metres of Canadian canoe, also green. Lashed down with ropes inside are ten litres of water and six barrels into which we have decanted our worldly goods as well as five days’ worth of food. Apart from that, the canoe contains a map book, a bailer (very useful), a spare paddle, and us, the greenest part of all.

Having paddled successfully down the short side arm, we have reached the river itself. Although several other boats are setting off from Whakahoro this morning, they have now vanished from sight, leaving us alone in the primeval wilderness of the upper Whanganui River. Whakahoro means ‘to scatter’. It is certainly the place from which the canoes are scattered onto the river.

The only sound, apart from the dipping of the paddles, is the birdsong. Even that is sparse, but all the more beautiful for it. The river reflects and intensifies the mood of the sky above it. The moods we experience are sanguine - for almost the entire journey there is no rain and the sun beats down from a sky which is either clear or just intermittently cloudy. We relish our luck. The forecast for next week is five days of rain.

Paddling

Today’s journey is short – five hours. That’s because the John Coull Hut and campsite two hours further down the river, where you normally stay after heading off from Whakahoro, are fully booked. A shorter day today means a longer one tomorrow, but we use the short day to try and refine our paddling technique. The roles of the paddlers at the front and rear of a canoe are quite different. The person in the bow is the chief paddler, and the one sitting astern is responsible for steering (and a bit of paddling too). The river does quite a lot of the work, except when it doesn’t and you find yourself battling currents, headwinds or both.

I think we’d both assumed beforehand that Alex would be at the front and I’d be at the back. In the week prior to the trip I’d watched Youtube videos on paddling and steering technique delivered in impeccable Canadian accents. Consequently, I was confident I could paddle forwards, backwards and sideways if necessary. What hadn’t really sunk in, though, was the difference between backpaddling and using your paddle as a rudder. It’s basically the difference between steering your car with fingertip precision at the steering wheel and doing a handbrake slide into every bend. On Day 1 of our trip, most of the steering was done using the handbrake.

Approaching Ohauora

In spite of this, the five hours fly by, and before we’re expecting it, there’s a sign on the right saying ‘Ohauora 100m after next rapid’. (There were several rapids that day, but more about them later). At that point, a prudent helmsperson would have headed for the righthand bank of the river and hugged it until the landing point – whether a beach, a rockface or (rarely) an actual physical structure – was reached. Yours truly, however, continues on down the middle of the river, misses the landing spot and then tries in vain to turn the canoe upstream and paddle back to it. Alex is understandably unimpressed, and we toss up whether to flag our campsite booking and proceed to the next, wherever that might be. However, thanks to a final, fevered effort we manage to bring the canoe into shore not too much further downstream, and then to wade back through the shallows, walking the canoe on its leash like an obedient poodle.

We are rewarded by a pleasant, bush-clad campsite with the usual water supply (rainwater), seats and shelter for cooking, and the inevitable malodorous long-drop. We’re able to dry off our sodden shoes in the bright afternoon sun and have the upper level of the campsite largely to ourselves. Prior to that we have to carry our six barrels and 10 litres of water up a short scramble to the campsite, a daily ritual we quickly get used to.

Day Two: Ohauora to Ramanui

Anticipating eight hours of paddling, we start early. Our journey today falls into two main sections, but we also decide to stop briefly at John Coull Hut. Our lunchtime goal is the Mangapurua Landing for an excursion to the Bridge to Nowhere. Our privately-owned campsite, Ramanui, is immediately opposite what is possibly the best-known campsite on the river, Tīeke Kāinga, which is a marae, so we are expecting to see more traffic today. This shows up at the stopping points, with canoes clustering sardine-like, but disperses quickly on the river itself. Once again, for most of the day, we find ourselves alone on the water.

The landscape remains largely the same, but there also numerous sweeping bends where the river trebles in width and the rock formations and millpond conditions combine to create a seamless kaleidoscopic symmetry. There are times, too, when the river seems to descend the gorge more steeply, to the point where you could feel giddy just looking down it. Strangely though, the water doesn’t seem to move any faster in these sections. For that, you need the rapids, which get not just the water but also your pulse racing.

Rapids

Rapids dominated the safety briefing we received, which featured some top tips on how to fall out of your canoe gracefully. That made us more determined not to. Māori clearly respect rapids. From our map we discovered that each one on the Whanganui River has a Māori name. The only names we had heard beforehand were encouraging English ones like ‘Fifty-Fifty’.

The other vocabulary we found useful in dealing with rapids were words like ‘snag’, ‘hidden rock’, ‘eddy’, ‘lean in’, ‘paddle like mad’, ‘epistemological uncertainty’ and, most importantly, ‘the V’. Rivers, it seems, are democratic. When the river narrows or gets shallower, the water molecules take a quick vote, decide on the best path to follow and then gather themselves into an orderly ‘V’ formation. Recognising the V early was crucial to staying in your boat. Alex was our ace V scout. I could usually see them too, but I always checked to make sure we were seeing the same V.

In the briefing we were given a foolproof procedure for dealing with any rapid, which can be summed up as follows:

‘Align yourselves with the V (follow the main course of the water) and then paddle like mad.’

What this simple formula doesn’t take into account is that every rapid is different:

1) In the bigger rapids, you have waves breaking into the canoe (especially at the bow),

2) The main stream of the water sometimes takes you smack bang into the rock wall, which water molecules handle better than canoes,

3) The rapids frequently contain hidden rocks and snags, which can be the reason for the existence of said rapids, and

4) Not knowing where these rocks and snags may be is a constant source of epistemological uncertainty / exhilaration / anxiety.

The general advice we received for dealing with surprises was: ‘Lean in’. Applicable in some cases, but a bit of a blunt instrument, so tyro canoeists like us might be tempted to evade these dangers by leaving the turbulent flow in favour of the calm of the adjacent eddy. Again, the advice was simple: ‘Don’t do it!’

Eddies are the strong, silent types of the river. What they do really well is spin – slowly, but remorselessly. They will spin you around as soon as look at you. And since rapids often come in series, the last place you want to be when you enter the next one is facing back up-river. After several near misses of this kind, we learned to avoid eddies like the plague by staying in the turbulence regardless and taking our chances with the rocks.

We learn these things through a lot of near misses. We are fortunate in one way because the rapids we encounter on our first two days are moderate by comparison with the ones still to come.

The Bridge to Nowhere

It’s not hard to recognise the Mangapurua Landing, the stopping place for the Bridge to Nowhere and our lunch venue. As we approach we are buzzed by a jet boat, and then dazzled by an array of colours up on our left that we have scarcely seen since leaving Whakahoro. Red, yellow and orange have been restored to the spectrum of visible light (re-joining green – the river, and blue – the sky).

There are probably twelve canoes hitched up when we arrive, and maybe closer to twenty when we leave. Landing requires some ingenuity. The ‘pier’ is a sheer rock face with two vertical sets of hand and footholds gouged out of it, one at each end. If you are lucky enough to be moored near them, you can climb straight up, painter in hand, to tether your canoe to the mooring post. If not, you hop from canoe to canoe first to get to your point of departure.

The Bridge to Nowhere doesn’t cross the main river. Instead, it bridges a steep side stream, and takes you literally nowhere. The bridge is surprisingly small, but a minor jewel of civil engineering reminiscent of the Kelburn Viaduct in Wellington, though surrounded on all sides by the spreading fronds of tree ferns.

Ramanui

Having descended to the landing point again and disentangled our boat Kererū from the masses of others, we set off for our campsite, another couple of hours down-river. Piece of cake, you might think. No major rapids. Just watch out for the sign saying Ramanui, hug the right bank, paddle paddle steer steer – what could be simpler?

Problem is, when we spot the sign, framed by a canoe turned ominously on its side, it’s already after 5pm, and the infamous afternoon wind is blowing full force into our faces. We are on the left-hand side of the river, and the wind is determined not to let us cross. We battle with it for a full ten minutes before it sullenly concedes to letting us come ashore. We extract our barrels from the canoe and start to schlep them up the bank in the direction of the Ramanui campsite, aka ‘Joe’s Campsite’.

Enter Joe, mounted on a quadbike. ‘You’re very late. I’m not expecting any more campers.’ Good thing he doesn’t ask to see our receipt, which consists of a giant smiley face, with the words, ‘Ramanui 2p paid ’.

‘We’re doing the TA,’ Alex replies helpfully.

‘That explains it then’. It seems that for Joe, TA paddlers are a sideline, but none the less worthy of kindness. At his suggestion we bundle our barrels onto the back of his bike. Gunning the motor, he disappears up the track in a cloud of dust.

When we are ready to cook our late dinner, we find the main kitchen occupied by a large party of carnivores barbequing steak for a spot of al fresco dining. We decamp to a smaller, more vegetarian kitchen with great heavy gas rings, pots and pans, kettles and running water – everything we need except a can opener. Since a can of baked beans is supposed to supplement the soysages on tonight’s menu, and the can is one of the old-style, non-self-opening ones, we are stuck. Perhaps the carnivores have one? Indeed they do, and empathy to boot. ‘Having a can without a can opener sucks,’ the chief cook confirms. So, to our menu is added a slice of humble pie, but at least it is a vegetarian pie.

Kererū (centre) making friends and waiting patiently for us to return from the Bridge to Nowhere

Day Three: Ramanui to The Flying Fox

Today is our really long day. We are bracing for nine hours of paddling. We set the alarm for 5.30am and are on the water by 7am. Our itinerary promises us a bit of everything – first, four hours of intense paddling, including the most notorious rapids, Ngaporo and Fifty-Fifty; lunch at Pipiriki, gateway to the national park; history at Jerusalem (Hiruhārama) and Moutoa Island, before a fairytale finish at the Flying Fox retreat.

By now we are starting to feel confident about our basic seapersonship – surely a dangerous development, given that we are about to encounter the most challenging rapids on the river. We paddle in time to a rhythm which is usually 4/4, with the occasional bar of 5/4. I have discovered that if I hold my paddle like a rudder and then give it a flick, I can correct the direction of the canoe within a single crotchet beat – paddle, paddle, paddle, flick. Occasionally the rhythm is paddle, paddle, paddle, paddle, flick or paddle, paddle, paddle, fliiiiiiiiiiiick, depending on the currents. Whether these refinements make a difference to our speed is hard to judge, but they are certainly aesthetically satisfying.

Fifty-Fifty

When the rapids loom, we are ready for them. Not for nothing have we pored over our map book the previous evening by the light of our head torches, committing their every feature to memory until we can recite them to one another out loud. Even Fifty-Fifty, despite threatening to swamp us while dashing us against the rock wall to our left behaves exactly as predicted. Enter the V, paddle like crazy, lean in, steer away from the rock wall and the eddy, keep on paddling - until the last vestiges of epistemological uncertainty have been banished, and the pulse approaches normal again. For us, Fifty-Fifty is a rapid half full.

Although we are not out of the gorge yet, today we are being treated to bucolic episodes featuring wild goats. Goats in a fjord – the only missing element is a troll. We certainly spot the Big Billy Goat Gruff though. At the water’s edge we repeatedly encounter kids that have somehow become separated from their parents and are bleating piteously in the hope of being rescued, apparently not realising that their families are just a short scramble away up the near-vertical rock wall.

Pipiriki, Jerusalem and Moutoa Island

Pipiriki (literally, ‘little pipis’) where we have decided to have lunch seems very relaxed compared with our previous ports of call. For all the other crews except us, it seems, this is the end of the journey. From our shady picnic spot, we watch the other arrivals mosey into port, secure and empty their canoes, wade nonchalantly through the water and soak up the midday sun. And then there are the canoe hire people, practising their trailer-backing skills on the boat ramp with varying success.

After Pipiriki, the river is emptier than ever, and the emptiness reaches its nadir as we approach Jerusalem. The first bridge across the river – a footbridge in a state of noticeable disrepair – signals that we are close, but it is only when Alex catches a glimpse of a church tower that we realise we have almost passed the settlement already. The landing site is as rudimentary as they come, but we do manage to tie up our boat and clamber through the brambles and up the bank.

The convent of the Sisters of Compassion established by Suzanne Aubert (Mother Mary Joseph) to serve local Māori seems empty too, apart from two people who greet us briefly and then disappear into the church, leaving their shoes at the door. We don’t want to intrude on them, so stay outside, then walk back to our canoe via the Rosary Way. There is little that can be ascertained from such a brief visit, but it certainly strikes a rather melancholy note on our otherwise sanguine journey.

The other historic site we pass soon after is Moutoa Island, where a decisive battle was fought between up-river tribes (the Hauhau) and down-river tribes in 1864. Moutoa Gardens

(Pākaitore) commemorates the victory of the down-river tribes, who had taken the settlement of Whanganui under their protection from the Hauhau. However, it is easy to see how during the Moutoa Gardens occupation of 1995 in Whanganui, the colonial history of the area (and of the country) caught up with the city. It is heartening that subsequently, Māori rights to the river and indeed the legal personhood of the river itself have been recognised. Paddling the river is certainly one way to get a sense of that personhood.

The Flying Fox Campsite

For the last hour or so, we keep on imagining that we are seeing flying foxes in the twilight. The nine hours of paddling have become ten and a half hours. Our arms feel okay, but it is hard to sit still any longer. It is as if everything has been elongated, and the distances between the few homesteads we spot seem almost interminable. We can’t believe that we haven’t reached our destination by now. A couple of times we get our hopes up when we see wires crossing the river which then turn out to be power lines.

We never get to ride in the real flying fox, but we certainly recognise it when we see it. Just as well, because there is no other sign to tell us we’ve arrived. Spoiler alert – a flying fox cable is a lot thicker than a power line. Rather disappointingly, the mechanical contraption does not get pressed into service to help us haul our barrels up to the campsite. Once again, that is down to us. However, the drudgery of lugging our belongings up the cliff is quickly offset by the realisation that we are entering a kind of enchanted garden. Even the sheep who greet us at the gate seem larger than life, their fleeces immaculately combed, as if this is the first thing they attend to before they get out of bed in the morning.

Alex returns from his usual reconnaissance mission to report that our hosts are just feeding their guinea pigs and will be with us shortly. It turns out that the enchanted garden is home not just to useful animals like sheep, hens and chickens, but to ornamental occupants like guinea pigs and a few human guests, who seem oblivious to our arrival (perhaps under some spell of enchantment or because there is wi-fi transmission here). Avocados, walnuts and figs hang heavily from great trees which fill the garden. Our host advises us to take no notice if a deer or wild boar which might come down from the bush during the night to feast on avocados should put its head around our tent flap.

Scattered around this balmy biotope are a collection of houses (Alex calls them tiny houses, but some are not so tiny) attributable to architects as varied as Gaudi and the designer of Admiral Boom’s house in the Mary Poppins movie. These eccentric residences are occupied, it seems, by our hosts, their family, and the other guests we saw, together with a group of mysterious TA paddlers who never show themselves but have hung their lifejackets neatly out to dry on the clothesline like a rowing eight.

The facilities we need to make ourselves comfortable are also sprinkled around the garden, like different species of plant. The long-drops, a male and a female placed next to each other for pollination, are in a fenced-off section. The shower is located under a tree in the bush, as all good showers should be. The kitchen is a tidy shack next to the pergola which shelters the octagonal dining table, and so on. Even the simplest things are ornamented here, whether it is the soap dish in the shower or the mural in the kitchenette.

It was a big day and food tastes extra great

Day Four: Flying Fox to Hipango Park

We are up so early the next morning and at such pains to be quiet I think the host thinks we are doing a runner. Today is supposed to be a shorter, six-hour day, and so it proves, but there is a sting in the tail. This is also the first day on which we do not sight another canoe the whole day, and end up sharing our camp site not with chickens, nor guinea pigs, nor any wild boars we are aware of, but with a whole mob of sheep. It is also the day when we learn how not to park your canoe in a tidal zone.

The river has entered the twentieth century by this stage (the twenty-first century will have to wait a while). But in amongst the sections of farmland, pine plantations and the like there are still parts where the gorge reasserts itself, and with it, the narrowness and the rapids. It also seems as if every tree which has ever fallen in the forest upstream has been swept down the river and found its resting place here, near the bank or, more treacherously, in the middle of the river. Snags, in other words, many of them planted amid rapids.

Once we realise that we are going to be tested again by the rapids, we embrace them, in a manner of speaking. Perhaps it is the low level of the river at this point, but we have repeated close shaves with submerged rocks and tree trunks. Fortunately, Kereru, with her shallow draught, has the knack of gliding on past them, as we have seen several acrobatic airborne kereru doing above the gorge at different times.

Hipango Park

The jetty at Hipango Park resembles the stand at a small cricket ground, with elaborate steps and five levels for boarding or disembarkation. At this point, an alarm bell should be ringing, but we see the multiple levels merely as an additional obstacle in our daily barrel dash. We tether Kereru facing up- river, tucked in next to a large log which we hope will keep her out of harm’s way.

With the help of a kind passing local on a quad bike, we get our barrels up the hill quick smart. It turns out that Hipango Park is a reserve, but also a working sheep farm, with a public barbeque area cum campsite cum sheep paddock. Unlike the cattle we have encountered previously, the sheep are not bothered by our arrival, although they do keep their distance. Alex is particularly charmed by Spoons, one young sheep which seems to be smiling and skips along as if to the beat of a different drummer - a jazz drummer, judging by the footwork.

Having set up our tents and laid out our barrels, we take some time to read the sign boards welcoming us to Hipango Park. It turns out that it is a former pa site which was generously gifted to the public by its Māori owners. At that time, it became a popular destination for excursions on the river boats which plied the Whanganui. With their demise, the number of visitors has declined, as has the condition of the facilities themselves, in spite of the efforts of the river authority and local Rotary club to improve it.

The information board also informs us that the river is tidal at this point, and we should take care how we tie up any boats. At this point the proverbial alarm bell finally does go off and we head back down to the landing. In the two hours since we arrived, the river has emptied out. One end of our canoe has climbed a tree, while the other is firmly lodged under the beams of the jetty. It doesn’t bear thinking about what might have happened if we had left it like that overnight.

The tide chart provided by Taumarunui Canoe Hire informs us that today the fluctuation between high and low tide is more than two metres. As the tide has gone out, Kereru’s stern has become entangled in the large log, while her bow has somehow been rammed fast under the jetty. A four-metre canoe is not the lightest thing to lift under normal conditions, let alone while trying to keep your balance on the uneven, muddy riverbank. We haul Kereru up a couple of levels of the ‘cricket stand’ and then one more for luck to allow for a two-metre rise in the tide.

Spoons posing next to some unnecessarily gendered long drops

Day Five: Hipango Park to Whanganui Holiday Park (water) & Whanganui Holiday Park to Whanganui City (land)

We take our time to get up this morning, because we’ve been told there is no point in leaving before the tide starts to recede at 2.30pm. As we lie in our tents and daylight percolates in, we are treated to a dawn chorus of the utmost delicacy. At first it seems like a repeated plaintive solo call, but then it becomes apparent that this is just the beginning of an outdoor version of Ravel’s Bolero. The starting voice and answering call seem to be a pair of classically-trained tui - aspiring bellbirds perhaps. After 32 bars, a magpie joins them – virtuosic, but brassy. Meanwhile, some forestry workers have arrived down the road, and turned on their radio, loud, but not enough to drown the tui, who continue on oblivious. After the requisite number of bars, the forestry workers having set themselves up for their day’s work, a chainsaw breaks into the soundscape. A twentieth century parable if ever there was one.

Unless you are a shepherd, there’s only so long you can sit around in a sunny paddock with a flock of sheep, your breakfast eaten, your gear packed up, doing puzzles from the Guardian Weekly, before you start to get itchy feet. Rather than wait till 2.30, and risk arriving very late in the Big Smoke, we decide to make tracks and see how far down the river we can get before the incoming tide makes progress impossible.

Our strategy pays off more handsomely than we had expected. The river is mostly wide and open, and without the excitement of rapids, the paddling is sedate. Though no longer as inspiring as at the outset of the trip, the scenery is pleasant, with a lot of majestic trees. Trembling poplars are prominent, and quiver in the slightest breeze. The road is a frequent companion now, though most of the hinterland is farmland still. For quite a long stretch, we actually seem to have the wind in our backs, pushing us and the currents down-river.

The home straight

Little by little we lose that impetus, slow down and finally seem to be fighting the current to make any visible progress. But we sense that we don’t have too much further to go, and that the extra effort is worth it. This more difficult patch corresponds with a change in the weather. For almost the first time in five days, the horizon is dark and rain seems to be imminent.

We now enter a two-kilometre stretch of the river which is wide and straight. Apparently, this part has been used for national and international rowing competitions. We imagine that we are the New Zealand entry in an Olympic race – Hamish Bond and Eric Murray, perhaps, who won 69 races in succession including two gold medals … though they didn’t have to carry their food, water, tents, sleeping bags, clothes, six barrels, a spare paddle, ropes, a map book and a bailer in the boat with them.

Soon afterwards (perhaps half an hour later) we are finally on the home straight. There are houses on either side of the river, and a bridge – it looks like a footbridge – with people streaming across it, presumably out for a Sunday afternoon stroll. A man on the bridge notices us, stops and shouts down to us. Where have we come from? Where are we going? He wishes us good luck and hopes we’ll beat the rain. In the course of that minute-long conversation, it dawns on us what we have achieved.

Now we really are in rowing territory. We see a rowing eight out on the water, then a powerboat with the coach on board, megaphone in hand, and then we encounter both heading inshore to the boat ramp of the Whanganui Holiday Park, which is our own destination. The rowing eight are a team of young women - perhaps the future Evers-Swindell sisters are among them. This is not as fanciful as our delusion of being Bond and Murray.

Sitting in a short queue at the boat ramp we realise we do have something in common with these young rowers at least – we all come from Wellington. This is the Queen Margaret College rowing squad, or part of them, up here for a training camp. Having retrieved their elegant long white boat from the water, they stand on either side and then on command, lift it onto their shoulders and carry it to its trailer. Fortunately, we don’t have to do the same with ours. Once emptied, it’s enough for it to be laid on the grass against its predecessors until Taumarunui Canoe Hire run out of boats and come down to Whanganui to collect them all.

Mixing a metaphor or two, the last five days have been our incubation period as fully-fledged amphibians. We have learned to move easily between water and land, which is just as well, because the logic of the trail is relentless. We now need to switch back into walking mode to go the remaining six kms to our accommodation, a backpackers hostel we have booked online. Our walk turns out to be a march in the rain through the very long suburb of Aramoho, a cross-section of the variety that makes up this city. Then perhaps we can go out for a celebratory dinner in a Japanese restaurant with some decent vegan options, before turning in for the night at the backpackers.

For me, an early morning start beckons to catch the bus back to Wellington. For Alex, ditto, except that he’s embarking on the next stretch of the trail (Whanganui to Koitiata). On the rapids we learned to apply Yogi Berra’s dictum, learned as coach of the New York Yankees: ‘It ain’t over till it’s over.’ If Berra had taken the chance to walk Te Araroa, he might have said: ‘It ain’t over till it’s Bluff.’ All credit to Alex for his staying power, although unlike me, with my selective participation, he probably doesn’t suffer from imposter syndrome!

Total distance walked/kayaked/cycled/canoed: 1360km

Mood: Rather tired but proud of achieving something that I (Alex again) was initially out of my depth doing

Currently reading: The river/rapid notes

This is a fun painting that my Grandma created of Dad. She has been walking vicariously by painting scenes from the walk as I go. I’m excited to exhibit her full work in a future blog post.