7. Ohinepane – Whakahoro (WRJ 2)

Friday, February 15: Cloudy and a bit cooler to begin with, a brief, very light drop of rain, sunny & hot in the afternoon

Kayaking: 38.0 km

Whakahoro Bunkroom (Doc, $10)

It had gotten suddenly much cooler in the night, and my position on top of the sleeping bag had to be exchanged for under it; but not in it, not yet anyway. I was up after 6:00. Breakfast was an egg, 40&nsp;g of Kransky sausage (quite acceptable), 50 g of crackers and margarine, and one double coffee. Only thing I had forgotten was that the spoon I had measured the coffee & sugar into their containers with was not the same spoon that took out the quantities. Anyhow.

Tent was a bit wet, but other than that everything packed up just fine. A tip for cooling water: Have at least 0.5 L in the stronger water bottle & pour hot water into it. In that way the water temperature is immediately halved and can be transferred to the other bottle. I was ready to go by 8:30, this time with a backpack on board from the start.

Didn’t go particularly well. The first rapid drenched me entirely, which left a pool of water in the spray skirt and from there to the pack, so that the pack had to be taken inside. But photos still had to be shot! So I attached the camera case to the life jacket – first one way and then the other, and that worked well for the rest of the trip.

I was counting rapids – and that reasonably accurately, and arrived in Poukaria when the rapids said I should, for a short break and morning tea of a couple of muesli bars. Was fairly soon back in the water heading for Maharanui, again counting the rapids. There was a bit of cloud in this section, so the photos should be quite brooding.

Just before Maharanui I took the wrong channel and got stuck on a rock. Dislodging myself by swinging I found myself at right angles to the current (not a good place to begin with) and then facing upstream. I thought my days were numbered, but I quickly turned the boat around and headed into the rapids proper. Next stop was lunch.

Slide Show

I could see that one boat had been here, and had a longer break; I took a couple of photos and a panorama of the cliff facing the campsite. Time was fairly good so I was in no hurry to get to Whakahoro and used further opportunities for more photos, including one waterfall in a slot canyon. For this I had to get out of the boat into what proved to be industrial grade cement. Dedicated extraction of one croc was necessary, followed by washing everything. But at least the photo was taken.

Not too far to go now. It was a little difficult actually finding the turn off, and the beach is no longer there (nor the cypress tree) but pretty much on the dot of 3:00 I was out of the boat. Two trips were necessary to transport everything that was needed out of the valley, and the sunny afternoon could be used to dry everything. One pair of sox was washed, and an attempt was made of drying the tent, as it was still packed away and had to be fetched from the boat.

Interactive Map

Some dedicated solutions for transporting the bandaids (which seemed to hold for the whole trip today: BandAid Fabric, pack of 50, full width) were necessary because the paper packets dissolve too quickly, thus a plastic bag would be ideal, but none could be found.

Anyway, time was getting close to dinner. I had ordered a table at the Blue Duck Café for 6:30. Host Mel took my $20 (down from $25 they had stated in the email) and asked whether I wanted dessert as well, and who was I to deny. The meal was self-serve, seconds allowed, consisting of rice (could have been better), beef curry, coleslaw, and bread & butter. Perfect alternative to camp kitchen, not expensive, mainly stuff that can’t be transported down the river without going off or falling into the water, and of course the ice cream for dessert was not on any camping program. I am satiated, in any case, and was able to fill up my water bottles as well. The other guests were a crowd of mainly young people, quite possibly the goat shooters I overheard about at the last visit.

Today’s timetable: