We got up at just before 6am as the recommendation was to be on the river by 8am to be able to make it to our pick up point at Piririki by 1pm. Packing up is a bit faster when you don't have to take the tent down and without rushing we were indeed on the river around 8am. Day 5, the day of the dreaded 50/50 rapid. We were given a pointer by one of the Maori people to enter the 50/50 slightly to the right. No other canoers we talked to seemed to know exactly where the 50/50 was other than it was more towards the end of the day. We had been told during the safety briefing that people would be watching other people take the 50/50, either booing or cheering them on. I envisioned the 50/50 to be a rather large rapid, with spectators watching from the banks up above.
The river had a few more rapids than the day before, with the map giving one clear warning about staying to the left of a BIG rock when the water level was lower. The BIG rock was not nearly as big as I had thought it would be, but as we entered the rapid and approached the rock - which quickly grew in size as we got closer - we realized that was the BIG rock and we paddled hard (as the stream pushed us to the right) and just managed to stay to the left of it. We heard that not long before us one of the other canoes hit the rock head on resulting in the canoers going overboard while the canoe stayed upright.
Not long after stopping off at a waterfall in a cave, we saw a rapid coming up but as we approached it a jetboat came from down stream so we held back to let it go by, and then entered the rapid while noticing that a bunch of canoes had pulled off on a rocky bank in the next curve of the river and people were walking on the rocky bank. The rapid was definitely rather choppy in the middle and with a cliff wall being on the left Don stayed to the right of the middle and we paddled hard to maintain our speed and came through it fine, only to realize as we came out that that had been the notorious 50/50. Of course we then pulled off to the side as well and joined the other canoers to watch the next canoes negotiate the 50/50. Right after we pulled off we noticed Graham and Lisa coming through and tipping up side down so we jumped back into our canoe and towed their canoe to the bank while they swam alongside it. After that we watched about 12 more canoes comes down the river, with four taking the shallow bypass channel on the far right side of the river, and indeed about half of the other canoes ending up up side down at some point in the rapid. Then there were some canoers who emptied their canoe, walked back upstream and took the rapids backwards (one successfully so) and other canoers who floated down the rapids in their life jackets. After the 50/50 we had another hour of canoeing left with a few more rapids until we reached Pipiriki, the campsite/ landing from which we were being picked up. Everybody pitched in getting the canoes and barrels loaded on the trailer and we were treated to some juice and a muffin which was nice. We then had to walk up a road (always up!) where a bus (coach) was waiting for us. The bus ride back to base took about 1.5 hours and by the time we had unpacked our barrels and were back on the road to our next destination it was 4pm or so. We drove down to the town of Whanganui and found a campground to spend the night and finally take a shower again.
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