A Dangerous Business

Date: 23rd December 2023

Start: Hipango Park (km 1347)

End: Caroline’s Boathouse, Whanganui (km 1370.3)

Distance Travelled: 23.3 km

Total Distance Completed: 1324.3 km

Song Currently Stuck in Head: head was empty today

Time Spent Waiting for Lunch: well over an hour

A night of strange dreams introduced me to the new day. For some reason my brain was telling me Simon & Garfunkel were actually George Michael and Willem Dafoe. Once I woke up and tried to wrap my head around that, the sun was already high in the sky. Thankfully for us high tide would be at the very nice time of 9:45. We could all take an easy morning and still reach Whanganui by lunch. It should’ve been an easy morning, but either a combination of my sickness or perhaps some mild hay fever caused by the huge swath of dead grass littering the campsite meant that I had no energy to do anything, especially carrying my barrels down the hill to the dock. It was a slow affair, however it meant that we actually got away right on the 9:45.

In my head, I thought that the outgoing tide was going to give us a huge speed boost and we’d be going at 10 km/h. Reality is often disappointing. We barely went faster than on any other day, but I could imagine that going against the tide would be a nightmare. Most of the other boats rushed ahead with their stronger arms, Nil and I struggling to keep up. Both of us were very keen to finish in as little time as possible. A great journey it had been, but not one we wanted to continue any further.

We still kept the rest of the fleet in visual range and to my joy I could see them slowing down after an hour and a half and joining together. Excellent, it was raft time! This close to Whanganui there weren’t any nice river banks or rocky shoals to pull over for a break so this seems like a decent albeit slightly shaky alternative.

Matt got his drone out for some final group photos, some people had a nap, others finished off their snacks and chatted away. It didn’t last as long as I would’ve liked, but we were going very slowly and still had 8 km to go. Once more we separated and made our final push to the finish line. State Highway 4 ran parallel to the true left bank, its users creating a not particularly nice soundtrack.

Nothing else of note happened. The rest of the fleet zoomed away leaving us as one of the last boats to make it to the boat ramp at the holiday park. Our voyage down the Whanganui was complete. The barrels came out, the contents removed and placed back into my still slightly damp pack, and everything was sorted neatly for the hire company to collect later. Shame they weren’t there to meet us, I would’ve liked more of their freshly made bread.

My day wasn’t done just yet. Melly proposed we get lunch together at a pub a few kilometres down the road. I was conflicted between my hunger and my complete lack of desire to walk another inch of the trail today. Hunger won out in the end, my stomach forcing me to walk 3.5 km to the pub where I ordered a steak sandwich that took a ridiculous amount of time to arrive.

Whilst this was all going on, Grams (who yoy be probably seen commenting at the bottom of every post I make) and my Uncle Robert were making the drive from Palmerston North (referred to as Palmy from here on out because I’m Australian and therefore allergic to syllables) to Whanganui to pick me up. Reuniting with them has been one of the biggest motivating factors throughout the first half of the trail. Whilst sitting at the table I kept glancing out to the carpark for any sign of their arrival, which they finally did a bit after 3pm. We chatted for a while until my food came, after which I said a sad farewell to my trail family and left for Palmy. It was time for a well-earned rest over Christmas.