Our Whanganui River Trip

Last Saturday morning we drove for an hour and a half, most of the way on gravel roads, to get to the town of Pipiriki, where our river tour started. I call it a town because that's how it was described in the brochure, but really it's more like a village. In fact, thinking about it, it isn't big enough to deserve the name village, consisting as it does of just half a dozen houses and a public toilet block. So let's call it a settlement.

From the boat ramp at Pipiriki we rode in a jet boat up river for about an hour. Our guide, who was the owner of the tour company, stopped at a few places of interest along the way, including an area of river underneath an arcing rock cliff called the amphitheatre because the acoustics are so good there. In the 19th century when paddle steamers plied the river, the local Maori used to put on shows at the top of the cliff for the visiting tourists.

At another point our guide showed us metal rings driven into the rock a few feet above the water line. These rings used to hold lengths of rope. At points where the river was particularly shallow, paddlesteamers would often run aground, so these ropes were installed so that they could attach to them and be hauled over the shallow bits.

After about an hour on the jet boat we arrived at Mangapurua landing and from there it was a forty minute walk through the bush (native forest) to the famous (in New Zealand) Bridge to Nowhere.

not the Bridge to Nowhere ~ must be the bridge to somewhere

This photo shows Iain walking across a hanging footbridge on the way to the Bridge to Nowhere. Our guide told us that the bridge had only been completed just before Christmas. The previous footbridge had been washed away by floods the previous season.

The Mangapurua valley was first opened up to farmers between the world wars. About thirty farming families lived there by the mid 1930s when the bridge was built as part of the new road linking the Whanganui River with the town of Raetihi to the north. By the time the bridge was finished eighteen months later, only a handful of families remained. The road was never finished. The reason? Poor farming conditions in the valley combined with a sudden decrease in river traffic when the 'river road' was opened in 1934. This was the first road to connect Wanganui to the interior of the North Island. Before that everything came on the river.

The Bridge to Nowhere

We ate our packed lunch on The Bridge to Nowhere and then set off back to the landing. Our guide took us several kilometres back down the river in the jet boat, and dropped us off at a rock and driftwood strewn beach where there were a couple of canoes.

Helen

Action Helen paddles furiously

It's a really isolated bit of the world up river - there is no road access or even walking access to vast sections above Pipiriki. One of NZ's 'Great Walks' is a five day wilderness canoe trip down the Whanganui and it really is pretty wild up there.

Why are you smiling? Haven't you seen Deliverance?

Having been abandoned somewhere in the middle of nowhere, we thought we'd better start paddling back. Open Canoes, I have decided, have the potential to wreck marriages. "Paddle left! No right!! Where are you going?" etc etc. Eventually we sort of got the hang of it, and managed to proceed in a zig-zaggy way down river. I'm sure you're only supposed to tack against the wind when you're in a sailing boat! There were a few small rapids along the way, which were lots of fun for us 'newbies' and we managed to get back to Pipiriki in one piece without being molested by any banjo playing hillbillies.

Taking a well earned rest from canoeing sideways down the river

Overall we had lots of fun and are contemplating buying our own canoes (not open ones!) to do a bit more splashing about in the river. The five day trip sounds like a lot of fun.

Iain