6. Ohakune – Taumarunui-Cherry Grove – Ohinepane (WRJ 1)

Thursday, February 14: Warm & sunny throughout with occasional cloud

Kayaking: 22.5 km
Tramping (Lauren’s Lavender excursion): 0.4 km

Ohinepane Campsite (Doc, $20)

The alarm hadn’t been set, but I was fairly confident of my ability to get up on time: 6:00 was being aimed for, practically it was 5:30. Had a breakfast of cornflakes, peaches & milk, coffee & two slices of plain toast in the still very quiet house. Alan showed up briefly, and then it was off to pack the final items, shove the suitcase into the room across the hall. Everything I wanted to take with me fit into the two backpacks, and I now have them with me. Which turned out to be a good decision.

So I was off to Yeti around 6:45. People were starting to collect. Two women from Australia (Sylvie and her friend, starting the tour from Ohinepane), my companion, Julian, from last night, some other people on other tours, and Geraint and Paulina from Cologne (he is “British”, born in West Africa, Welsh/English) who are also on our tour with a canoe. One further German woman, Kikki, was introduced later, she is also in a single kayak.

Gavin has quite a number of transport staff now, and we were being taken by Svenja from Gifhorn and an Italian lady whose name went missing. Anyway the boat was soon packed (with space to spare), a spray skirt and a life jacket were obtained and we were packed off into the van and on our way to National Park.

There was a stop for refueling there (both the vehicle & any passengers who wanted a coffee) before making our way to Taumarunui. Once there the toilets were visited, and then there was a safety briefing by Svenja. Apparently we weren’t even to try the big rapids at Herlihy Bluff – we were to walk it. Then for all of us leaving Cherry Grove, we got to our boats.

I had to erect my gimbal construction, which went fairly well. The troubles began when a bloke with a jet boat had me move my boat down river a little which caused the remote to fall into the water and saturate the battery compartment. Secondly while doing all this my sunglasses escaped from my top shirt pocket. I had especially chosen a life vest with an intact zip compartment (most of them were torn) but someone else had made avail of it. Too late for the sunglasses, but for the gimbal there was a problem that had to be solved.

As it turned out (I tried drying the gimbal with a hanky) it only operated sporadically. Obviously some water had gotten into the switches because the machine thought it was on all the time, and only one operational mode was possible, although the batteries seemed to be full. After a short time I dismantled the camera because the gimbal had stopped stabilising & it didn’t make sense any more.

What also made little sense was the spray skirt. I tried it inside and out, and it required a contortionist to get it on. Eventually I was tucked away and made my way downstream.

Not a bad day to be doing the trip. I was counting rapids (fairly accurately) and was coming up to #14 (which would be the Herlihy Bluff, a distinctive chalk cliff, as opposed to the larger, darker mudstone cliff that precedes it) when I caught up with the others. Then there was a farmhouse (“the white house”) and the Towhenua Rapids could be inferred, so we all got out, and led our boats along the shingle bank where it was a little tamer. No idea how Pea & I made it down (which we did), but pretty soon we passed the bank where we had made our first break.

Little by little we were making our way towards a break at Lauren’s Lavender. I was spun around in one rapid trying to escape a tree in the middle of it, and then I caught up with Julian because I had been observing the water and wanted to warn him against drinking it, boiled or not. Instead he ought to consider having all his bottles filled up at the cafe. Then we passed under the bridge.

Slide Show

A short while later we arrived at the lavender farm and parked. The others followed toute suite. I took out the SX160 and started taking some pictures – then I noticed that the ISO was set @ 1600; changed that to auto, and changed the white balance to auto, too. Took some shots for the bad pixels, then set CHDK to raw shooting, Here I noticed that the batteries in the cameras had not been fully charged last night. Turned off the tracker to save memory, and then we set off for the cafe: I had a flat white with a lemon cheese muffin ($10; I hadn’t had any lunch apart from an egg in Taumarunui), we asked for our water bottles to be filled up (6 litres!) and our wish was granted, and we then set off back down to the boats. I managed a few shots of a giant dragonfly, and it even landed on me!

I had to solve the problem of not having any equipment on deck. A couple of items (GPS, camera, compass) were placed into the smaller backpack and it was worn as per usual. If I can’t get the gimbal going, then at least I can take some photos along the way.

Ohinepane was next on the list. I think I made the right decision to stay here. Even if Poukaria can be reached by 6:00, then a lot still has to be done in the short time that remains of the day. Gavin always says we should be able to start each day @ 9:00, but the first day never starts before 10:30 at the earliest. In Whakahoro tomorrow there is no tent to be set up, and the meal at the Blue Duck has been preordered, so no cooking or washing up, only things to be dried, so it can be a longer day on the river if necessary. In any case for me the day after is shorter and things can be dried there at the very latest.

Interactive Map

Anyway arriving here @ 4:15, taking leave from all the others who were headed for Poukaria, and taking everything up to the campsite to dry, then tent set up, the cooking & diary writing done, and it’s about to get dark. I had a brief swim, just to cool down a little, met a family with little boy and girl from Frankfurt, took some pictures.

Dinner was 80 g rice, which worked very well, one packet of instant noodles and one very large tomato, one apple for dessert and a vitamin tablet. The rice (Value White Rice, long grain) was boiled for five minutes, then left to stand for ten. In the meantime a Canadian couple have set up their rooftop camper, and a black-and-white cat is creeping around.

Birds seen today included quite a number of paradise ducks, ordinary ducks, geese, a heron and a couple of seagulls. About to renew the deet, put the spray skirt over the cockpit and set up the air bed. Doc water was at least clear and I have boiled a litre which is slowly cooling.

For the record the sporting timetable today was: