Day 51: Poukaria Campsite to Mangapapa Campsite

Distance Covered: 32 km

It rained quite a bit last night and into this morning. We didn’t really want to get everything wet by going out into it, which is ironic since we are traveling on water anyways. We rolled out of bed and then rolled onto the water, putting paddles in just after 9 AM.

We did have mild drama with possums or rats in the middle of the night. They startled the German young woman in the middle of the night when she got up to use the restroom. The woman from Finland said they pulled at her tent before she yelled at them. They also left evidence that they were around everywhere.

On the river, water kept falling from the sky before finally breaking up in fits and starts around noon or so. In the meantime, we enjoyed the cliffs, fast flow zipping us along, and frequent rapids to keep us engaged and thinking. 

We got to our theoretical camp in Whakahoro in the early afternoon and checked it out. It turned out that the camp itself is 350 meters up a cliff from the water. Since it takes two trips to carry the gear, this would be roughly 1.5 km of walking tonight and then tomorrow with all our gear. Hmm… Also, the cafe that was there said they weren’t serving dinner that day. Also, there were 26 people staying there already. It was chaos. So we decided to move on.

Before we did, we were able to catch up with hikers that move faster than us and had made it to the alternate canoe put-in point that we couldn’t reach due to scheduling. Some of them we thought we would never see again, but they were held up by bad weather for days.

We also got info on the trail we missed. Everyone raved about Tongariro Crossing. Everything else was more of the same they said… mud, forest, and mud. Even something called the “mud tunnel” which is kind of a natural half pipe filled with mud at the bottom. They seemed pretty down on that experience. Otherwise, they said you walk on a road through a valley with forested hills for tens of kilometers. So basically, they said, we missed nothing and the river sounded like a whole lot more fun to them. But we have to do the Crossing for sure.

It seems everyone is healthy and happy so that was great. There are a lot of good people on the trail, for sure.

But we like our little 6 person group and like the idea of more relaxed atmosphere on the river. There’s been so much city and road walking that it feels good to be out here with a few friends and peace and quiet. So onward and forward!

We ended up here in this camp 11 km down the river. It’s quiet and, somehow, we are the only ones here. Pretty lucky considering how many people we know are on the river. We haven’t seen more than a couple of people on the water for the last two days, though, and that was just in passing. We are very much enjoying each other’s company and sharing cultural insights and laughing about it all.

Tomorrow we keep going. The river is starting to level off and slow down, but we should still have good speed for another day or so.