A Dangerous Business

Date: 18th December 2023

Start: Coupers Crossing, Kaitieke (km 1190.4)

End: Whakahoro Bunkrooms (km 1215.2)

Distance Travelled: 24.8 km

Total Distance Completed: 1142.2 km

Song Currently Stuck in Head: Wellerman (it’s a sea shanty, getting a few prepared for the river)

Humidity: Brisbane-esque

Oh yay, another day of road walking! I am so excited at the thought of it! Ok, there are a couple positives to take out of it. First of all, it’s the last bit of road walking I’ll do before Christmas. Secondly, Sharon and Roger made breakfast for us. It may have only been cereals and toast with spreads, but it was lovely. Some might say too lovely, because we ended up spending 2 hours at the table chatting away about our journeys and receiving some very helpful advice from the Coupers. Namely, we really ought to book the ferry across Cook Strait right now. So we (being me and Team Camera) did, tentatively picking an early morning crossing on the 7th of January.

With that settled we said our goodbyes – after Sharon had given each of us an apple – and onto the road we went.

Melly stayed back to finish up some work-related tasks so it was just Matt and I together today. I won’t bore you too much with what we got up to on trail today, because it wasn’t a lot. Traffic was light so no chance of a hitch, the only interesting bit on the first half was hitting 1200 km.

The road got a bit more scenic from there, passing alongside the Retaruke River, a tributary of the Whanganui. Much like the river, the road meandered along above it, skirting cliff edges and sheep paddocks.

And these were proper cliffs, both above and below us, making us mildly concerned at the prospect of a rockfall.

Passing by a sheep farm just after this cliff, I learnt very quickly that sheep aren’t all that bright. Two sheep had somehow escaped their field and were eating grass on the edge of the road. Then in come two giants carrying pointy sticks and large packs and they rightly decided to run away. But they kept going in a straight line. There was plenty of room to dodge out of the way on either side, but no, straight ahead was the only option. Matt and I backed off to give them room to move out of the way, they just went back to eating grass. Finally they moved away, our concerns at being yelled at by the farmer alleviated.

A short while later we had reached Whakahoro.

We had the choice between camping or staying in an old converted classroom how being used as a hut. We chose the hut. Huts are great.

What isn’t great is the weather. It was properly hot, and that’s coming from a Queenslander. Summer has arrived at last, right as we’re about to start canoeing a river for 5 days with limited shade. Yay.

Let’s talk about the canoeing section a bit more. It’s a bit over 170 km to Whanganui which we could be canoeing over 5 days. The first three days are over the Whanganui Journey Great Walk so the campsites and huts need to be booked. When we did this, both huts were sadly full so we’ll be camping all four nights on the river. Tomorrow, the gang from Taumarunui will arrive in Whakahoro around 9:30 with the canoes and we would then have to paddle 47.5 km to our camp. On the first day. Starting late. Not really looking forward to that prospect. The positives are the weather is looking nice and sunny; I’m making quite a big list of “trails that would suck a lot if it was raining”. It’ll be nice to give my feet a break, although I do wonder how my arms will cope because I do not have a lot of upper body strength. Getting a strong partner would be nice.