Paddling the Whanganui River

Several years ago we visited Gill in Alaska and we had some great adventures. One of them was sea kayaking in Prince William Sound paddling in the fjords and up to the glaciers. So when Gill told us she was coming to visit us over Easter we tried to think of an equally cool adventure to take her on in New Zealand. The Whanganui River trip is a classic New Zealand "great walk" - although it is a paddle. The river goes from the volcanoes in the centre of the north island to the sea at Wanganui. We decided to paddle the 87 km from Whakahoro to Pipiriki in 3 days. This is the section of the river that goes through the Whanganui National Park and there is no road access to any part of the river. We took our sea kayak - Betty and hired a canoe for Gill and Anne-Laure to paddle.


Helen and Aaron in the kayak


Quick nature stop at one of the few beaches

It turned out that it was a lot harder in the canoe than in the kayak - so we switched around. We took a little while to also get used to steering the canoe. There are a series of ripples/rapids along the river, up to a grade 1+. There were several flat sections that were quite hard work as the river level was low and the water flow rather slow so we looked forward to the next rapid. One particular rapid towards the end of the trip was a little more challenging and although we didn't swim, Aaron and I had a rather good bath in the canoe and it took about 20 minutes to bail out all the water.

Paddling the canoe was also made harder by the fact that you were trying to keep up with the faster kayak. As a result we were probably one of the fastest groups on the river. So occasionally we managed to get ahead of the crowds and get the river to ourselves. This allowed us to appreciate the peaceful, beautiful, deep gorges with the subtropical rain forest hanging down.


Paddling through the peaceful gorges

The weather was perfect - cloudy, a little sunshine, not too hot, and a little sprinkling of rain on the last day. This, along with the fact that it was Easter long weekend, had brought out the crowds. There was carnage at the drop in point at Whakahoro and almost every night the campsites were overflowing with tents. Fortunately we usually arrived at the campsites early enough that there were plenty of spaces left for us.


Dinner is served!

Our second campsite was at Tieke Kainga, which is a Maori Marae. We arrived and set up our tents, and shortly after several important and elderly members of the whanau (maori family) arrived. To greet the elders the rest of the family held a powhiri (maori greeting) to which we (a few campers) were all invited to join in. This particular marae is very traditional as you can only get to this location by boat and the whanau had travelled down the river in their waka's (canoes) and the older and younger members in the less traditional jet-boats.


The marae at Tieke Kainga

Unfortunately the peace and serenity in the gorges was occasionally broken by jet-boats transporting tourists and hunters up the river. There were quite a few goats around and the hunters are allowed in to the national park to kill these feral animals. The tourists go to visit some of the sites like the Bridge to Nowhere, a short walk up from the river. The bridge to nowhere is all that remains from the pakeha (white people's) attempts to farm the surrounding land. They gave up farming even before the bridge was finished.


Gill on the Bridge to Nowhere - leading to nowhere!

There are also many sites along the river that used to be maori and pakeha villages. You can usually tell where they were by the poplar trees and a levelled off area - or the odd remnant of a jetty. The river used to be a main transport route from the centre of the island to the coast and there were steam boats that travelled along it until the early 20th century.

We got down to Pipiriki and there was a little bit more chaos with various tour operators picking up the punters at the end. We had a very nice dinner that night in Ohakune, after several nights of camp food. The final day of the long weekend we went up onto the volcanoes, fortunately for Gill the clouds lifted (just) so she got some views, and we went for a short walk to see the lava flows and water falls.


Taranaki Falls on the volcanoes

It was a great trip. It is a very beautiful part of New Zealand. It was even quite relaxing, compared to our normal adventures!

Sailing on Wellington Harbour

The NIWA office is on the edge of Evans Bay and we often see sailing boats and wind surfers racing past in the strong Wellington winds. It always looks like great fun.

Despite having been on numerous different types of water going vessels for work and play, I have never been on a sailing boat. So when the opportunity came up to have a go I signed up for a morning of sailing with a bunch of people from work.

So we rocked up at the sailing club and had a safety briefing and got into wet weather gear before heading off. The problem was that half the people on the boat had sailed before and several of us had no clue what we were doing. I spent the first 30 minutes just trying to stay out of the way and watching what everyone did when the instructor shouted tack or jibe. It is a whole other language of jargon that I have no idea about. I think I finally got a rough idea of what to do at the end of 2 hours on the water.


Helen, trying to stay out of the way as we race down Evans Bay.

The conditions were pretty hard - 20 knot winds with 30 knot gusts and 1 m swell. Not conditions you would catch me out in the kayak. However it turned out they were pretty ideal conditions to be sailing and you certainly got quite a bit of speed up going down wind and surfing the waves.

Because there were three boats we had a little race down Evans Bay, past our offices and then back to the boat club. I'm sure this was intentional to make our colleagues whose windows look out on to the bay jealous!


The other two boats in the back ground with NIWA offices just on the edge of the coast on the left of the picture.




It was a fun few hours and my arms are sore this morning as I did help with trimming the jib sheet (I think that is what it is called) and the main sail at the end of the two hours.

Sunny Sunday at Makara Peak

The sun was shining and my cold was pretty much gone so we decided to head over to Makara Peak. A huge storm blew through Wellington on Friday evening which brought a fair amount of rain. This helped the trails out heaps. They had be been getting dry and loose, but today they were just right - nice and grippy without being too slippery.


Storm about to hit Petone foreshore

We had a pretty crusiy ride to the top of the peak. I was extremely happy I could actually breathe properly. It was a bit windy at the summit so we only stopped long enough to catch our breath and take a quick photo of the new bike.


Posing at the summit of Makara Peak

After the photos we popped down the side of the peak on Zac's Track.


Helen railing one of the corners on Zac's Track

After decending most of the way down the peak we turned and head up Rimu to catch another fun downhill track. Two thirds of the way along Rimu, Helen manged to pick up a stick and turn her rear derailleur inside out and upside down. This pretty much ended the ride. Luckily we were able to coast most of the way back down to the car.

Making Jam

We have had a few weeks of consistent weather and after a slow summer, the garden is finally producing some fruit and veggies! I have had a lot of zucchini lately - so many I have had to give them away. I also found myself with a freezer full of raspberries. So I made some jam. Mothers and grandmothers the world over would be proud of me! It tastes pretty good - but not sure if is going to set? The problem is that I have 5 jars of raspberry jam and 5 jars of plum jam - I'm never going to eat that much jam in the next year. Maybe I can trade some plum/raspberry jam for some strawberry or orange marmalade?

Matt and Nicole's wedding, Queensland

We headed over to Queensland for a long weekend to go to a friend's wedding 3 hours east of Brisbane at Wallangara, right on the border with New South Wales. We expected it to be stinking hot, but it turned out that even from a Wellington perspective it was a little cool at times. We were up at almost 1000m, and it even snows there in Winter. I never knew that it snowed in Queensland. Fortunately it stopped raining for the wedding as I don't believe there was a back-up plan for the outdoor venue in front of a lake at Girraween National Park.


The married couple


Aaron, Sarah, Prof Dave Ellis, Anna and Alistair (aka Beaker)

The reception was held at the community hall. It sounds like the whole community was involved in the wedding. All the food came from local gardens and farms and was cooked by the rural women's association. All the decorations and outfits for the bride, bridesmaids etc.. were made by Nicole's mum who is a seamstress and according to everyone we spoke to - she also runs the whole town!

It turns out there are also a few wineries around the area. I have never heard of Queensland or New England wines, but Sarah and I of course had to taste test a few of them and decide for ourselves if they were any good. They weren't too bad.

There are a whole bunch of National Parks around. Bald Rock National Park is just over the border in New South Wales. We drove out there and climbed up the rock on Sunday morning. It is pretty spectacular and from the top you can see great views across the countryside. It reminded us of a smaller, Australian version of Yosemite.


Bald Rock the largest Granite rock in the southern hemisphere


Aaron walking down the face of Bald Rock

There were quite a few little rock wallabies around, we also saw an echidna and heard lots of kookaburras.


Rock wallaby

The bush and country towns reminded us of places around Canberra. It was nice to catch up with a few people from ANU as well. We hope Matt and Nicole are having a lovely relaxing honeymoon in Vanuatu.

Rimutaka Rail Trail and Kaitoke Park

My back has finally improved enough that I managed to get out of the house and have some fun this weekend. Saturday, Helen and I went for a ride up a Makara. We managed to do a pretty crusiy grand loop. Wow, it was fun to finally get back out on the mountain bike!

Sunday, was another nice day so we decided to go for a bit of adventure. We headed up towards the Rimutakas to ride the rail trail. Another cruisy ride to slowly strengthen up my back.


At the summit of the Rimutaka Rail Trail


Looking back down the valley we just rode up

We then headed over to Kaitoke Regional Park for a picnic. This is where the scenes of Rivendell were filmed for Lord of the Rings. It is an area of natural forest and river. It is a very pretty. We went for a short walk and paddled in the river.


Pakuratahi Forks

Mitre Peak

After planning several other weekends tramping in the Tararuas, just north of Wellington, and then cancelling at the last minute because of southerly gales... finally a weekend where the weather cooperated. Unfortunately it wasn't a long weekend, despite it being Waitangi Day, so we could only do a 2 day tramp rather than a 3 or 4 day. So 4 of us headed up to Mitre Peak. Aaron is still injured so he was left at home to cat sit.

It took 2 and a half hours to walk in to Mitre Flats Hut. Where we stopped for lunch. We dumped out most our stuff from our back packs and reserved our beds for the night before heading off up to Mitre Peak. The nice thing about staying in the huts is all you need is a sleeping bag. Mitre Flats Hut even has stoves. So this saves you a lot of weight not carrying a tent.

Mitre Flats Hut

It is 1000 m of ascent from the hut to the peak and it took 3 sweaty hours. 1 and a half to the tree line and then another 1 and a half along the tops. I love walking along the tops in the Tararuas, there are some great views and the alpine plants are very different. Just as we were getting towards Peggy's Peak the clouds came in, but when we were on the top we did get some sunshine. It was warm and there was hardly any wind. Very weird for the Wellington region.

Alpine plants

Helen and Bec ascending ridge up Peggy's Peak - just before the Mitre Peak summit.

View to the north

Alice and Carolyn sitting on the cairn on the top with the Wairarapa in the background. The sun came out for us at the top.

It took almost as long to get back down from the peak - 2 and a half hours, and most of us had run out of water as it was so hot. We got back to the hut around 7pm and had a very refreshing wash in the river next to the hut. After 8 hours of walking we were tired. We had dinner and pretty much collapsed in to bed.

Next morning we waited until most of the other trampers in the hut had gone before getting going and walked back out along the valley. There was a light breeze, which was a very welcome change from the day before. It was still very hot, so when we got down to the river again we cooled off with a swim and relaxed on the river bank eating lunch. Until the sandflies annoyed us enough to start moving again.

Carolyn braving the rather cold water!

It was a great weekend. Weather was almost perfect (just a little too warm). The company was great and it was nice to escape Wellington for a few days. Thanks girls.