Had some intense thunder and lightning with strong winds and lots of rain overnight. I was glad I opted to sleep in the bunk room instead of pitching my hammock on the ground (as with many of theses pay campsites there aren’t many trees in the camping areas). Malween’s tent got flooded, but everyone else in our group managed to stay dry. The weather held off long enough to dry out so we could pack up again.
Because of all the rain there were tons of waterfalls on the river, it seemed like around every corner there was a new one.
We lunched at the pickup point for the regular tour in Pipiriki, most people doing it as a great walk don’t paddle to Whanganui, partly because the river slows down a lot.
We were excited by the 50/50 rapids (names because that’s your chance of making it without flipping), but with all the extra rain water we just floated past them. However there were new rapids past Pipiriki that were quite impressive, when we went through at one point when the canoe went down in front water came pouring over the front of the canoe totally soaking the inside, Robin (who was in the back) said at one point I was about a meter above him. We were not able to stay a float. We managed to keep most things, just losing my pirate hat, a bag of nuts I was snacking on and my pirate mask. My phone was in my jacket pocket in a ziplock bag and luckily it was fine. We dragged the mostly submerged canoe into a shallow area where there wasn’t much current and started bailing the water out while having a good laugh. It took forever, scoop scoop, but the water level didn’t even look like it was going down. I got very cold standing in the river, but once we were able to get back in the canoe I was fine.
It was raining hard at times, to the point where the drops seem to almost slap you when they hit. The water levels rose a lot, we started seeing small trees floating down the river, they told us if we started seeing larger trees in the river we need to get out. The upside to all the water was the currents were super fast and we got to flying fox campsite and cabins really quickly. Because the weather was bad they let 8 of us rent a house together with hot showers and wood stove. It was amazing to have a hot shower and be able to be dry and warm.
Beautiful waterfalls!