Day 12 - Tuesday 09 March 2010
Ride Dist: 47 km. Av. Speed: 23.7 km/hr. Cal: 1000. Ride Time: 1 hrs 59 min.
Canoe Dist: 27km? Canoe Time: 5 hrs 30 min.
With the North Island Main Trunk Line just across the road from the hotel we were awake with the first train about 5.30am. From then on there seemed to be a constant procession of trains and trucks until we got up at seven. Our hosts made us a hearty country breakfast (which I won’t score because it wouldn’t be fair - long story) that hit the spot and set us up for the day.
I headed off down Oio Road in the chilly early morning air as the sun was just clearing the mountain tops. The near-frost conditions confirmed that Owhango is the highest altitude I’ll reach on my North Island route. Oio Road was a wonderful picture of New Zealand high country farmland as I rode west with the sun on my back, fog rising from the valleys and cattle quietly grazing beside the road.
I learned another lesson today - never let a car driver tell you what the road conditions are like for cycling! There were plenty of ups on this road although it generally drops from Owhango to the Whanganui River at Whakahoro. Some of the road is incised into the steep, grey papa cliffs with vertical drops to small creeks below and then it pops out on to grassy plains, lined with poplar trees. It’s a very scenic route.
Mum and Dad and Shari and the boys (and our canoes) all overtook me somewhere on the road and I arrived at Whakahoro just as the canoe company were disappearing with our vehicle, which I hurriedly threw my bike and sweaty riding gear into before scoffing some more of Mum’s picnic, changing clothes and jumping in the canoe like some sort of really bad multisport race transition.
We had a quick and comical briefing by Dave from Wade‘s Landing Outdoors, who was a classic kiwi country boy and did a great job of building our confidence and getting us on the water.
Mum and Dad headed back to Waihi after seeing us off.
The drill at Whakahoro is that you get your canoe, map, instructions on what to do if you fall out, tie on your gear and then paddle about 400m down a tributary and then you hit the Whanganui River.
Gob-smacked would be the only way I could describe my first impression of the Whanganui! As we approached the main river we looked right (upstream) and then left to where we were going and I was just blown away by what I saw. We were into a rapid within the first few hundred metres and the high river banks seemed to swallow us and sweep us down toward our first camp. Just stunning!
There were seven other canoes on the river with us and four of those were carrying kiwis. The others were German (with a Frenchman on board), two Dutch boats and an English couple. We slowly got to know the others as we criss-crossed paths over the three days on the river.
The scenery just kept getting better and after a mere five and a half hours paddling we reached the John Coull camp site, our destination for day one.
After slogging our gear up the hill to the camping terraces, we pitched the tents, ate and crashed! Everybody was fast asleep by nine o’clock.
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