Whanganui River Journey by Canoe

Whanganui National Park, North Island · New Zealand

Moderate5 daysOceania~£420 est.

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Overview

One of New Zealand's Great Walks is not a walk at all. The Whanganui Journey runs 145 kilometres by open canoe from Taumarunui to Pipiriki, through a roadless gorge of fern-hung papa cliffs — a river so central to Māori identity that in 2017 it became the first in the world granted legal personhood. Every bend has a name, a story and, frequently, a cheeky rapid. More than a hundred of those rapids, none beyond Class II, make this a perfect first expedition — enough splash to keep the bow paddler honest, never enough to require heroics. The set-piece day is the walk from Mangapurua Landing to the Bridge to Nowhere, a full concrete road bridge marooned in deep bush, relic of a failed soldier-settlement scheme. Nights alternate between DOC huts and campsites; at Tīeke Kāinga the hut shares its terrace with a marae. Book hut and campsite passes for the October-April season through DOC, then hire canoes and barrels in Taumarunui or Ōhakune — shuttles included, from about £420 for five days all-in. The variable is rain: the river can rise metres overnight, and operators hold parties back until it settles. The 50/50 rapid capsizes more canoes than any other; strap the barrels.