Day two of our Whanganui River canoe trip dawned clear and sunny and the hut warden said that water levels had dropped a bit during the night. After a breakfast of oatmeal and coffee we were out on the water again and enjoying the nice weather and just being outside.

Both of us felt a lot more confident in the canoe in the crazy currents and swirls of the river and we only had a couple of close calls in the morning. In addition, since the sun was out and the temperature was warm we wouldn't have minded getting wet . . . too much.

We had one stop to make during our paddle today and that was a short hiking trip to the "Bridge to Nowhere." Unfortunately, we weren't quite sure where to pull off the river for this stop and ended up overshooting the landing by quite a bit. In normal river conditions this wouldn't be too much of a problem but moving back upstream when the river was high and fast was almost impossible and we were near giving up. We finally had to get over to shore, get out of the canoe and wade and struggle to reach the landing point. Going just 200 meters in the rushing water took the better part of an hour.

The hike to the Bridge to Nowhere takes about an hour each way through forests, over streams and along different rivers. The bridge is aptly named because it doesn't lead anywhere at all. It was built because the area was forecasted to be growing due to increased mining and logging. But since a town never really developed and everybody moved away, the beautiful bridge was built for nothing. It is a nice excuse to get on land and a fun side trip for all of the river-trippers however and Sean and I enjoyed the chance to stretch our legs.

After lunch, we continued our paddling until we reached the second camp site which was held on Maori land now leased by the Department of Conservation. We were the only people there and the hut warden said that because of the floods he hadn't seen people in days. He invited us to stay in the hut instead of camping so he could have some company. I was pretty excited about this since there had been a lot of reports of river rats and possums pestering tent campers. We readily agreed and after making dinner settled down to a nice chat with the old time Kiwi conservation worker. He had a lot to say, most of which we couldn't understand because of his thick, back woods accent. He was also very hard of hearing so the dinner conversation was pretty one sided; it was an experience.

Our GPS spot tracker - we had to send an "All OK" message each night to the canoe company

He advised us to get to bed early and to get up early as the most challenging part of the river was yet to come on our final day. We set up our sleeping bags in the hut and enjoyed a possum-free night of sleep worrying about the rapids we had yet to get through tomorrow.

The Maori meeting house

The DOC hut that we stayed in

 

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