Today has been a fabulous day. We were booked for a full day trip on the Whanganui river on a replica old riverboat called Adventurer II.
http://www.adventurer.net.nz/content/17/54/
We were collected by minibus at 7.15am and it took around 2 hours to reach the landing stage at Whakahoro, over the last hour of which was over a single track, unsealed, rough and stoney road. Quite hair-raising at times, especially on the hairpin bends with huge gorges below. Luckily the driver has done the route hundreds of times so knew the road well.
When we reached the landing stage we had a bit of a shock. Most of it had been washed away by a flood a few days ago and we had to scramble down a muddy bank then 'walk the plank' to get on board.
There were only 5 passengers (6 including the minibus driver) and 2 crew: Vance, the skipper and Robert, the boat builder and part owner - a couple of real characters and difficult to describe. But they were both brilliant and knew and could read the river well.
Although the river had been in flood a few days ago the level was very low today and Vance had difficulty in setting off and turning the boat to face the right direction. Eventually we got underway and it was a stunning trip in unspoilt natural surroundings. So peaceful and the only sounds were the river and birds.
We had difficulty navigating the rapids (we were going against the current) and several time the boat's reinforced steel bottom rubbed along the rocks and stones making somewhat alarming sounds. The river was only a few inches deep at times.
Eventually we reached some shallows that the boat could not cope with so the crew tried winching it over. But unfortunately the tree trunk the cable was tied to became uprooted so we gave it up as a bad job and moored alongside the river bank where we were served a lovely lunch. We spent probably a couple of hours there chatting amongst ourselves and at one stage were joined by a Swiss couple who were kayaking the river. They were invited for a cup of tea by Vance, to much hilarity!
All too soon we returned to the landing stage and began the long tortuous journey home. We are both pretty exhausted this evening.
There are more photos with descriptions on my Picasaweb site:
https://picasaweb.google.com/judystevens17/NewZealandFebApril2011#
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