Day 41. 1st River Day. December 13, 2015.

37 km paddle
Taumarunui Canoe Hire to Poukaria.

I added up the distances for what I  am doing vs the official route. Taumaranui to Whanganui by river is 219 km.  The official route of walking to include Tongariro Crossing plus paddle is 317 km.

Sometime in the middle of the night it started raining.  Hard.  I dreamt of being wet and cold paddling down a swollen river.  It was still raining when I got up.  Orientation took a while. We were served delicious coffee drinks. And the rain stopped.

We got in the boats at noon and it never rained the rest of the day. For most of the day the river meandered thru farmland. We went thru a bunch of class 1 and 2 rapids. Brett did a great job of maneuvering the boat. And I was never wet or cold. And this part of the river was great. I am glad I didn’t miss it.

Because we started later than we had anticipated we stopped one campsite short of our plan. It was a great spot and no one else was there.

Covered cooking area