Day 62: Whakahoro to John Coull Hut (35km, 5 hours)

It rained heavily overnight. Not good - if the river rose too much or if the ongoing forecast was too bad, our trip would be off. In the morning we packed, and waited nervously for Taumarunui Canoes to arrive. 

At 9:30am their van finally turned up - towing a trailer of canoes. It turned out that the river was a bit swollen, and some heavy rain was forecast for later in the day as ex-Cyclone Hale passes to the east, but nonetheless the Whanganui River trip was on! We followed the van the 400m down the hill to the river bank, and helped to offload the canoes. 

While I'm a solo hiker and was planning to kayak, it's not possible to fit one person's gear and five days of food in a single kayak. So I was prepared to either be buddied up with a two-person canoe to carry the remainder of my gear, or to join another solo hiker in a canoe instead. It turns out there was another solo TA walker Jonnie, who had been camping near us the on the last two evenings, and Taumarunui Canoes had arranged for us to buddy up in a canoe. It took over an hour to offload the canoes, collect the barrels of food that we had conveniently left with the canoe company to transport down for us, stow our packs and everything else in other watertight barrels, and have a quick practice paddle. Finally at about 11am, feeling somewhat underprepared and still a bit wobbly on the steering, we set off down the river, the last of our group to leave.

There is no 10am pic from me this morning unfortunately - or indeed from here onwards. Capsizing is a real risk on this trip: the 50/50 rapid on day three alone apparently has a 50% chance of flipping us, and there are a series of lesser rapids all the way down. Best to be cautious - I reluctantly made the decision to stow my phone and glasses carefully inside one of the waterproof barrels for the entire trip. As a result I don't have many photos taken while on the river - I hope to collect a few from Lynne and Jonnie afterwards, and will add them to my blog retrospectively when I do.

For the first day I was at the front of the canoe (main job: paddling), and Jonnie was at the back (main job: steering). I hadn't spoken to Jonnie much up until now, but she did look vaguely familiar. And while comparing where we were from and what we were doing on the TA, it turned out that she was an ex-WSC student from 10 years ago! I hadn't taught her directly, but we spent a while comparing notes and sharing memories about the school. It's a small world! Jonnie is living in the USA at the moment: her job is to travel the country to remote wind farms, and abseil down 80-metre wind turbines to inspect and repair blades that may have been damaged by lightning.

The Whanganui River is normally brown - maybe a little more so than usual at the moment because of the bad weather. The scenery is incredible - much of the time the river flows through a deep ravine between high cliff walls on both sides, covered in dense lush bush, ferns, punga and nikau palms. While there were a number of other canoes setting off at a similar time to us, we all travelled at different speeds, and most of the time we couldn't see any others.

Canoeing the Whanganui River

The view from the boat

The river had multiple small rapids on the way down. Steering down the rapids was tricky at first - each one needed good communication, reflexes, balance, and a lot of mad paddling. Still, for the first hour and a half we made it safely through, and were starting to build up a bit more confidence. There was some occasional light drizzle and we were rather damp, but the storm was staying away. After a while we decided to stop for lunch on one of the small pebble beaches. 

Jonnie and I taking a lunch break. Peanut butter wraps!

Back on the river, we were approaching the first rapid after lunch, when disaster struck. This small set of rapids had rocks and a sunken branch in the middle of the river. We had to pick either left or right - sadly, with some miscommunication and fumbling, we chose too late, and came too close to the rocks. The river seemed to push us broadside into them - the boat hit with a massive thud, and we were both catapulted into the river. I ended up being carried downstream, along with both our paddles, while Jonnie and the boat were stuck squarely in the middle!

This was a pretty scary moment. I managed to catch up with the paddles, but the current was far too strong to swim back to the canoe - I managed somehow to make it across the current to the river bank with the two paddles, then stumbled back up to where Jonnie and the canoe were still stuck. However the boat had immediately filled completely with water, and wouldn't budge at all. We tied standing in the rapids, tugging at it for several minutes, with little progress. Luckily another canoe had caught up with us at this point, and a guy jumped in to try to help us. With his help we managed to tug the canoe loose - it immediately flipped (a good thing, as that emptied out much of the water), and we were able to swim with it back to shore. 

In hindsight, the whole event was a replay of the "what not to do" video that they had showed us almost 10 days previously in Taumarunui. D'oh! 

Back on the river bank, we took stock. Miraculously, the boat wasn't holed or broken; and all the watertight barrels had remained watertight and were still roped to the canoe. We had all our paddles - but my cap and one of my jandals had sailed down river, lost forever. It could have been quite disastrous - but luck was with us. We breathed a sigh of relief, and had to sit down before we had enough energy to bail out the boat and enough courage to carry on down the river.

Soon after, torrential rain set in. For an hour and a half the heavens opened and a deluge came down. No point trying to stay dry - we were soaked already anyway from the capsize - so we paddled on through the rain. Multiple waterfalls appeared on both sides of the river, and we could sense the river rising and the current increasing. We had been warned about the risk of the river flooding, and pushed on as fast as we could to try and reach the first day's hut before that might happen.

One of many spontaneous waterfalls

Later we passed the canoe of the guy who had jumped in to help us - to see him waving my missing jandal! Amazingly, they had found it floating down the river. Later the rain eventually stopped - the river became calmer, and the rapids milder. With the increased speed of the river we must have made faster than normal time, so we were surprised when we rounded a corner to see our first day's destination an hour or two ahead of schedule - the John Coull DOC hut.

Unloading our canoes 

All huts and campsites down the river are a long way uphill, because of the flooding risk. So after tying up the canoe, it took some time and several trips to untie and then lug our heavy barrels (5 of them!) uphill to the hut.

John Coull Hut

For a moment I felt a little guilty that Jonnie was in her tent while I was in the hut. But that moment passed very quickly (sorry Jonnie!) 

Heat ‘n’ eat tortellini for dinner, out of my Taumarunui food barrel

Fellow paddlers Joe and Vivian, from Ireland. Good to hear they also capsized - it wasn't just us!

Chris and Lynne arrived shortly after us, although Shaz, Bex and Stuart had continued for 1 more hour further down the river to another campsite, and it turned out I wouldn't see them again. We compared river stories over dinner - they had avoided flipping today, but were suitably impressed by our big adventure.

After dinner, Jonnie turned up at the hut - with my lost cap! Apparently another camper in her campsite had mentioned that they had found it on the river. So, the net result after our big crash was that nothing was lost (apart from some pride). What are the odds...? I had to treat myself to one of my emergency cans of Jim Beam & coke to celebrate.

Reunited with my cap and jandal! So chuffed - I’d though they were lost forever...

And, it was off to bed for an early night. It turns out there were only 10 of us in the bunkroom - it sleeps 20 and was supposed to be full, but clearly there had been a lot of people pulling out of the river trip because of the bad weather. We had been warned of possibly more bad weather overnight, and the risk that if the river rises too much we may need to wait it out here for a day. Fingers crossed.

What a day! 

The largely empty bunk room

Today’s route (in purple)