Ohh! It's one tree hill! Man, I find myself funny. This past weekend we went canoeing down the Whanganui River, which is actually one of the Great Walks of NZ (the only one on water, by the way!). You can do the whole river, which takes about 5 days, but you can do anywhere from daytrips to even longer (I think up to 10 day) trips. We had three days, thanks to Taranaki Anniversary day on Monday when the clinic was closed. Awesome!
Falls on the 2 1/2 hour trip up to Ohakune.
Pretty mountains!
And we're off on Saturday morning. We were ready to leave by about 7:30, then had a 1.5 hour drive to the launch. The first day we had about 37 km to paddle, with the total trip being about 90km. Thank goodness the current is around to help!
Lots of pretty pictures.
After paddling and paddling we finally arrived at our accommodation for the night, the John Coull Hut. We jumped in for a swim...after the initial moment of cold shock, it really turned out to be quite pleasant, and refreshing!
Hello goat! These guys were hanging around the sides of the cliffs. There was lots of bleeting to be heard.
Big ole cliffs of soft sandstone and limestone! Very cool.
We saw lots of carved out areas of the cliffs.
On the second day, we stopped at the Bridge to Nowhere. It used to be to somewhere, but now it's a big ole concrete bridge just in the middle of nowhere. This is a bridge built across the deep Mangapurua Gorge to provide access to pioneering farmers. Back in the early 20th century, there were a few settlements out in that valley, and there was an old swing bridge that was used to get around (cars even on this tiny bridge!). The thought was that the settlement was only going to grow larger, and the plan was to build roads to the bridge, but turns out that the valley was tough to farm, erosion was an issue, and by the mid 1940s, only a few families were still out there. Then there was a big flood, and the valley was officially closed.
Those watertight barrels are fun.
Our second night was spent at the Tieke Marae, which used to be a working marae, but now is managed by the Maori iwi as well as the DOC. It's in a gorgeous spot, and a great place to stay with a big old deck and separate buildings for sleeping and the dining room.
Look! It's a live possom! A little guy, too. Kinda cute. Too bad they're such a pest! They were introduced into NZ with hopes of using them for the fur industry, but they went crazy like rabbits and now there are like 30 million of them.
My lovely sister Moni sent hot chocolate packets...oh, I thank her so much! They don't have hot chocolate packets like at home, so the stuff that we have at the apartment requires a bit of milk to taste right. And who brings milk camping? So this was my very first hot chocolate while camping in NZ. YUM! Thanks Monica!!!
Our last day started out a bit of a cold one! We paddled fast to keep warm till the sun was up over the cliffs. Beautiful, though, huh?
Lunch enroute!
And another great view of the mountain--this is Ruapehu with the snow on it. If you look to the left, you can also see the small conical top of Ngauruhoe to the left, with the broad domed Tongariro just to the left of that. Ngauruhoe and Tongariro is where we were last weekend, with the Tongariro Crossing.
And getting back home to Taranaki--a ghost of a volcano ahead!
Falls on the 2 1/2 hour trip up to Ohakune.
Pretty mountains!
And we're off on Saturday morning. We were ready to leave by about 7:30, then had a 1.5 hour drive to the launch. The first day we had about 37 km to paddle, with the total trip being about 90km. Thank goodness the current is around to help!
Lots of pretty pictures.
After paddling and paddling we finally arrived at our accommodation for the night, the John Coull Hut. We jumped in for a swim...after the initial moment of cold shock, it really turned out to be quite pleasant, and refreshing!
Hello goat! These guys were hanging around the sides of the cliffs. There was lots of bleeting to be heard.
Big ole cliffs of soft sandstone and limestone! Very cool.
We saw lots of carved out areas of the cliffs.
On the second day, we stopped at the Bridge to Nowhere. It used to be to somewhere, but now it's a big ole concrete bridge just in the middle of nowhere. This is a bridge built across the deep Mangapurua Gorge to provide access to pioneering farmers. Back in the early 20th century, there were a few settlements out in that valley, and there was an old swing bridge that was used to get around (cars even on this tiny bridge!). The thought was that the settlement was only going to grow larger, and the plan was to build roads to the bridge, but turns out that the valley was tough to farm, erosion was an issue, and by the mid 1940s, only a few families were still out there. Then there was a big flood, and the valley was officially closed.
Those watertight barrels are fun.
Our second night was spent at the Tieke Marae, which used to be a working marae, but now is managed by the Maori iwi as well as the DOC. It's in a gorgeous spot, and a great place to stay with a big old deck and separate buildings for sleeping and the dining room. 
Look! It's a live possom! A little guy, too. Kinda cute. Too bad they're such a pest! They were introduced into NZ with hopes of using them for the fur industry, but they went crazy like rabbits and now there are like 30 million of them.
My lovely sister Moni sent hot chocolate packets...oh, I thank her so much! They don't have hot chocolate packets like at home, so the stuff that we have at the apartment requires a bit of milk to taste right. And who brings milk camping? So this was my very first hot chocolate while camping in NZ. YUM! Thanks Monica!!!
Our last day started out a bit of a cold one! We paddled fast to keep warm till the sun was up over the cliffs. Beautiful, though, huh?
Lunch enroute!
And another great view of the mountain--this is Ruapehu with the snow on it. If you look to the left, you can also see the small conical top of Ngauruhoe to the left, with the broad domed Tongariro just to the left of that. Ngauruhoe and Tongariro is where we were last weekend, with the Tongariro Crossing.
And getting back home to Taranaki--a ghost of a volcano ahead!
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