The alarm was set for 5:45am as the safety briefing was at 6:45am and all our equipment - including the camping gear - had to be in the barrels before then so we had to take down our tent, have breakfast and pack up before the briefing. The fellow doing the briefing - held inside with complementary individually made coffees for those who wanted them - presented it with humour and even had an actual canoe to demonstrate certain things, like how to position yourself when taking rapids. He also showed drone footage of things going wrong (or right) with other canoes, especially going into, or in rapids or when approaching obstacles in the river. He mentioned the 50/50, a notorious rapid towards the end of the fifth and last day, which apparently sees one in two canoes going up side down. After the briefing all people doing the three-day canoe trip were loaded onto a bus to take them to their starting point, and about half an hour later 14 people walked down to the river right there to start the five-day journey. Ten people were members of mostly two New Zealand families and included some teenagers with the parents maybe around my age; then there were a New Zealander (Graham) and his US partner (Lisa) also about my age, and then Don and me. A quick demo and some practice in the "Canadian canoes" (but made in the USA, by Old Town Canoes) and some pointers as to where to stow the barrels and how to tie them down, and we were on our way at about 9am.
Having a canoe ourselves, Don and I were familiar with paddling, however, taking a loaded canoe through rapids on a river was something we definitely needed to get used to. Most of the time you could see faster water coming in from one side, creating a V which you want to steer the canoe into. There were quite a few rapids on the first day, ranging from fairly smooth to bumpier, with or without rocks to avoid or canyon walls to stay away from. The pointers given at the safety briefing made sense and were very useful: the canoe itself is unlikely to tip; rather the people will unbalance the canoe and be thrown out and/or cause the canoe to tip. So wedge your legs against the sides of the canoe when going through a (choppy) rapid, keep your center of gravity low by leaning somewhat forward, keep your canoe going straight and keep paddling to keep the canoe 's momentum going and try and be faster than the river flow. Lean towards obstacles you go towards as that way the water has a chance to go underneath your canoe rather than into your canoe which may well result in the canoe filling with water and turning up side down.
The scenery was very nice, varying from bare grassy hills, treed grassy hills, at times with a few sheep, goats or cows grazing on a grassy patch near the river. We stopped for an early lunch somewhere, and went up a small side stream - after spotting Graham and Lisa's canoe there - where there were some nice waterfalls. For a while we canoed with Graham and Lisa, chatting as we paddled. The families canoed as a group. As by far most people opt for a three-day canoe trip, it was not surprising that we saw no other canoes than the six other canoes of our "group" that started that morning. We saw many waterfalls during the five days, mostly small, sometimes just a trickle, but nice either way.
I had gone with the Department of Conservation's (DOC) recommended stops for the four nights which meant, as a turned out, that we were at our first campsite at 1pm which was a little on the early side. All others continued on to the following campground about 1.5 hours further down the river. The campground had road access as well and there were a few other campers but no other canoers. Don went for a swim and I went for a dip in the rather cold river (in this location), we had some good chats with a New Zealand camper who was on vacation with her husband and two kids, cooked our meal, went for a walk and were in bed just after 8pm after a little bit of rain started falling.
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