Goodbye New Zealand

After leaving the Golden Shears we drove as quickly as we could to Auckland and began preparing to sell our car. Just after pulling up to a cleaning station our car was backed into by a truck and our plan went out the window. It was not our fault, but our insurance had run out the day before so we had to deal with the situation directly. We spent our remaining time in Auckland walking Ponsonby Road and Queen Street, checking out the fancy boats in the harbor for the Volvo Ocean Race and visiting the Sky Tower to get a nighttime view of the city.

Thankfully the family we had stayed with at the start of our trip was willing to have us visit again so we headed out to their house. Being back there felt like being home with family and we quickly settled back in to farm life. They set us up with a repair shop for our car and we helped out around the farm. During the first couple of weeks the weather was rainy so we stayed around the house and took the children to Kelly Tarlton’s (an aquarium in Auckland). The last week was spent working on a new garage and getting our things packed.

After 19,000 kilometers of driving, multiple boat rides, around 1,000 kilometers of walking (including nine great walks), a couple of pairs of shoes and making some incredible friends it was sad to say goodbye to New Zealand. We are already planning our trip back.

Golden Shears

Golden Shears Final

Gavin Mutch, World Champ

South African blade shearers

We still have a few weeks left in New Zealand, but our last planned activity was the Golden Shears. The Golden Shears is a famous shearing competition and this year it was also where the shearing world championships were held. Over 2,000 people including the Prime Minister, John Key, showed up to cheer at the top of their lungs for the competitors. Highlights included John Key getting up on stage and pretending like he was going to shear and the award presentation for the machine shearing world championship when a group got up and did a Haka and then a Scotsman sang his national anthem in response. You can check out the videos of the shearing here: http://goldenshears.co.nz/live12.htm.

John Kirkpatrick, Golden Shears champ

Joel Henare, Woolhandling world champ John Key at the Golden Shears

Whanganui River Journey

Our last “great walk” was spent sitting on our backsides, paddling down a river. It was certainly a nice change for us and we enjoyed not carrying a pack. The great walk section of the river from Taumarunui to Pipiriki takes five days, but there are also options for one, two, three and four day trips on that section of the river. The trip can also be extended right down to Wanganui by adding another two days from Pipiriki. There are a number of rental companies who will rent out Canadian Canoes or kayaks for use and provide transport to and from the river. We chose to do the 145km, five day paddle in a Canadian Canoe rented from Blazing Paddles because the canoe gave us plenty of room for food and drinks.

On our first day we paddled from Cherry Grove in Taumarunui to the Ohinepane Campsite. It was strange paddling on a brown river, but the surroundings were beautiful. We spent the second day journeying to the Mangapapa Campsite. We stopped for lunch in Whakahora where we had a coffee at the blue duck café. The Mangapapa Campsite was high on the bank of the river and provided us with an incredible view up the river valley.

 

The first two days we did not see any other people on the river or at the campsites, but the journey from Whakahora to Pipiriki is the most popular part of the trip so on our third night we finally had company. After a lovely day of paddling we decided to spend the evening at the Mangawaiti Campsite which is high on a rocky bluff above a narrow canyon. It was a steep hike up with our camping gear, but the spot was well worth the walk.

The highlight of the fourth day of our trip was the walk out to the Bridge to Nowhere. It is a beautiful concrete bridge that was finished in 1936 to service a few farms in the area, but shortly after that the government decided not to maintain the road to the bridge and all the farmers were asked to move out of the area. Local legend has it that somewhere between two and five cars drove across the bridge. Now it is the largest tourist attraction in the Whanganui National Park with tourists taking jet boats up the river and walking in just to get a look at it. After our stop there it was a short paddle down to the Tieke Kainga Marae where we stayed for the night. A marae is a Maori owned group of buildings that are most often used as a meeting place. The one we stayed in also has a DOC hut attached to it and is available for visitor use.

Our last day on the river took us through the three larges rapids that we experienced on the trip, Ngaporo, Autapu and Paparoa. Thankfully by this point in the journey we had gotten better at paddling together and managed to keep the canoe upright through all three.

After our journey was over we took a drive on the Forgotten World Highway. It took us through some of the most incredible farming country that we have seen. It was full of steep peaks and deep valleys with almost no visible access. We made a quick stop in the Republic of Whangamomona to get our passports stamped before continuing on to Mt. Taranaki.