Day 50: Night Paddling
November 29, 2019
Kilometers: 1301.7-1354.8
Flying Fox to Whanganui Holiday Park
The big 5-0. Pretty wild that we’ve been out here for 50 days already. We were reminded of just how long we’ve been away by waking up to everyone’s snapchats of their thanksgiving feasts. As you all chowed down we munched on some granola bars again.
Everyone was late out of camp today. The owners had people pay in the morning and they were not necessarily quick to accept payments. I was totally fine with this because I was able to listen to Michigan basketball beat UNC on the radio right when I woke up. Everyone else capitalized on some extra sleep. After paying and loading the canoes we got on the river about 10am.
The morning had a few fun rapids sections. At one point Ethan and I, trailing Charlie and Peter, saw their complete indecisiveness in a rapid and they ended up beached in between a rock and a log. As we passed them Peter wanted to throw me a rope to pull them off. Realizing this was a terrible idea I kindly declined as we cruised by the Belgian national team.
The morning flew by quickly and we pulled over for lunch around noon. Ethan and I successfully rationed our lunch food and had enough for today, which is our last lunch before arriving in the town of Whanganui.
As we got closer to the ocean throughout the afternoon the rapids slowly stopped. This river widened and this caused us to battle some headwinds even though the current was with us. The scenery was great as per usual.
We arrived at the campsite at about 4. We unloaded the boats and headed up to the campground area. We made dinner of raviolis with salami in red sauce and garlic naan. Shortly after we headed off to bed. And that’s how the day ended. Or that’s how most other peoples day would have ended.
With 20kms left on the river the ocean tide comes into play big time. We are best served to paddle the last 20km when the tide is going out. So we had two options: either wait until noon the next day for the correct tide to paddle into town or leave at our regular time and fight the tide the whole way in. We chose option three, leave at 1am and night paddle into Whanganui with the correct tide. With no more rapids on the river we saw it as a prime opportunity to night paddle and stargaze at the same time.
Ethan and I just set up the netting part of our tent to keep the bugs off. Charlie and Peter decided to just sleep under the shelter in sleeping bags until the early wake up. Matthew thought we were nuts and will be paddling with the other group at the campsite at normal time. We set our alarms for 12:30am and headed to bed for a couple hours before the night paddle.
I have night paddled on a few occasions before and they are awesome. It allows you to see the paddle from a completely new perspective. Obviously both our canoes will have headlights to warn other potential boats on the river that we are there. I somewhat jokingly pitched the idea but Ethan jumped all over it and Charlie and Peter were in at first mention of it as well.
So at 1:12am we took off from the campsite. We tied the two canoes together, Ethan and I on the left and Charlie and Peter on the right. Ethan and Peter had the two strongest headlamps and used them to spot the way and potential hazards. It was pitch black and the cloud cover didn’t bring the stargazing to fruition. The first hour seemed to go by slow having little clue what was in front of us. After that the paddle seemed to go by much quicker. We played music and joked as the sky slowly got a bit brighter. A minute before 5am we pulled up to the Whanganui Holiday Park. We set up our tents to finally get some more sleep.
A later talk with the holiday park owner revealed he had never heard of anyone leaving in the middle of the night to finish the paddle. Weird.
-Alex