Taumarunui to Stratford

Day 5 - Thursday 3rd March

Taumarunui to Stratford - 158km

1. Taumarunui to Canoe start (13km MTB)
2. Canoe start to Ohinepane (15km Kayak)
3. Ohinepane to Stratford (100km Road Bike + 30km MTB)

Fog hung around the Whanganui River at daybreak today but Metvuw.com promised sunshine so we knew that once the fog lifted we’d be in for another great day.

Kel and I rode the MTBs from Taumarunui Canoe Hire HQ (where we’d stayed the night) paralleling the river to the canoe launching spot 13km downstream. After the safety briefing and a few paddling and river instructions Adam, Reid, Shari and I boarded the Canadians and slid away from the bank into the fog. Kel took the opportunity to gain some more whitewater experience in his Eclipse - the section of river we paddled was ideal training. We’ll be back!

As an aside - we discovered that the river and picnic scenes from the recent “Yogi Bear” movie were filmed right there in Taumarunui, and wouldn’t you know it, the Canadian kayak that Reid and I paddled was the actual one used in the movie.

It wasn’t long before the sun broke through and we enjoyed the serenity of the river as we negotiated the rapids and quietly paddled the bits in between. An hour later we landed at the Ohinepane boat ramp and camp ground all agreeing that the river was a great interlude from the road bikes and traffic.

Back on the bikes, we headed west on the Forgotten World Highway toward Stratford. This route is very scenic, very hilly and very long but very worth the effort. The lack of traffic was a nice treat too. We wound and climbed and descended and wound some more, occasionally catching a view of Ruapehu back over our shoulders to the east as we gradually gained elevation. Eventually we arrived at the 12km gravel section where we switched to the MTBs for the tight stretch to Whangamomona.

The calorie count must have been pretty high for the morning - or at least that was our justification for scoffing a pie, a muffin and two coffees at the Whangamomona Hotel.

Back on the road bikes again for the final 63km (with 3 saddles) to Stratford, we were looking forward to catching our first view of Mt Taranaki, the first sign that we were arriving at the west coast. The bonus was finding that at the summit of Strathmore Saddle we could look east and see Mt Ruapehu and look west and see Mt Taranaki. Brilliant.

The last push to Stratford took us from sheep farms to dairy country and finally back to suburbia at about 6.30 in the evening. A big day, but very cool.