1/4/22 Day 108, 36km, Total 2971km
Up at 6 and ready for the briefing at 7. Into the vans and off to Whakahoro (70 min drive) with 16 other paddlers. Another briefing/demo and we were away. First to leave in our group at 10.30am but another small group from another company left before us. It didn’t take long to get the feel for the padding and steering. Stopped at the first camp site for lunch and the other small group was there. We left before them.
We (Dennis and I) stopped at the next campsite and had a wander around to stretch our legs. Then on to the John Coull Hut where we were surprised to find that we were the first there for today at 4.00pm.
The hut is small for 20 people but nice. There were 29 people also camping here.
The warden gave a really good talk on Long Tail Bats that are living in a couple of trees beside the hut. There were 4 or 5 of them flying around at dusk. Really cool.
Good atmosphere here tonight with people from different groups all mingling.
Today was about learning how to manage the Canoe. Dennis was in front providing the forward propulsion and I was at the back trying to steer the thing away from obstacles and eddies etc. We are getting the hang of it. No really challenging rapids today but enough to challenge our limited skills. It was a fun day.
