The water level on the river kept rising overnight, the place where we tied our canoes up initially the night before was completely submerged in the AM, and the river was super fast, but now the sun was out. The last day we make it to the ocean, so we have to be mindful of the tides otherwise we end up fighting it at the end. We planned on staying at a campsite between flying fox and Whanganui, then the next day ride in with the tides, but the owners of the flying fox informed us that with water levels so higher we should have no problem with the tides and with the water being so fast, the trip which is normally is a 9 hour paddle could be considerably shorter.
The weather forecast is looking great for the next week, so I was excited to finish up a day early and take advantage of the nice weather and take a side trip to Mt Taranaki. So we all decided to just paddle through if possible.
The paddle was mostly uneventful, the scenery became more farmland and less of the beautiful cliffs. The wind started picking up as we got near the ocean and was a pain in the ass, but the strong currents were on our side and even when we were getting blown around we were making progress. Amber had fallen behind a bit and I was concerned about her being alone with the wind, so Robin and I stopped and waited for her, then for the last bit she switched into a canoe with me and Robin took the kayak.
We made it to Whanganui a little after 4 and got a ride downtown to get dinner supplies and celebrate!
It was a fantastic trip, I really enjoyed our group, I think our personalities worked together really well and it was a lot of fun!