By Ruth
Distance: 25km (20km by canoe, 5km walking)
We woke up this morning to another lovely morning mist over the river. Because I’ve developed this pretty bad case of presumed hives on my face, as well as a bit on my hands and legs, we wanted to get going early while the sun was still covered (the hives are very sensitive to sunlight). We were on the water just after 7. It is so lovely to be out in the early morning when the water is calm and the birds are singing.
Being right before the Whanganui meets the ocean, this last section of the river is tidal. We timed our morning paddle to coincide with an outgoing tide, and arrived in Whanganui just as the tide was at its lowest, around 11 am.
We dropped our canoe and all the equipment at the holiday park just before the town, schlepping our barrels up the steep river bank for the last time. We were glad to say good riddance to those! We packed up our backpacks, laced up our shoes, and just like that we were walkers again. We proceeded to walk into town for coffee and lunch.
After a long lunch and a quick resupply, we headed over to our trail angel hosts for the night, Rob and George. They have done up the outside of their house with our orange arrow markers, in order to look familiar and unthreatening to us walkers.
Actually they prefer the term kaikiati or gardians, as the term “trail angel” comes from American through hikes. This was just the first of many unique things we would learn about them.
From the moment we arrived everything was perfectly suited to what a TA walker could want. We were offered tea and biscuits, then given a place to hang our wet tent. Next was laundry – complete with lending us some spare shorts and t-shirts so we could actually wash all our clothes. Then showers followed by a glass of wine.
Before dinner, Rob and George gave us a traditional Māori welcome: to their home, to Rob’s traditional tribal lands, and to all of New Zealand. It was truly touching. Then, dinner, dessert, tea and bed with real sheets and pillows.
While we really enjoyed parts of the canoeing, it ended up being pretty exhausting for us. We were starting to feel like we were just rushing from one section of trail to the next, and needed some time to recover. Over lunch today we discussed taking two rest days in Palmerston North (about 2 days walk from here) in order to feel more restored. But then, Rob and George offered us to stay with them for two nights instead of just one. That was all the sign we needed, so we will take an extra day here in Whanganui and enjoy their amazing hospitality for a little bit longer.