Day 48 - staying put

Taumarunui.

It was not a light shower.

We were all up at 5.30am packing our tents away, cooking an early breakfast when we got a text from Karen, the owner of Taumarunui canoe hire. Water levels had risen so much overnight that the Whanganui river had flooded. We weren’t going canoeing today - it wasn’t safe. We all trudged up to the office and tried to make ourselves feel a little better by playing with the puppies.

With the river levels as their current level, the earliest we’d be getting on would be Sunday - three days from now. And that’s if there was no more rain. There was more rain forecast for today, so that could push us to Monday.

Whilst disheartened, I was alright with waiting a few days. I could rest my feet, take a mini holiday in Taumarunui! Karen happily said we could camp at the canoe shed in the meantime - the common area had a bbq, power and sofas - all we needed. A few of the other hikers, having already been on holiday in Taumarunui for a week, were understandably over the waiting. Sandy, Luca, Katherine, Marley and Yuki all booked a bus straight to Whanganui to start the next section - they’d try to come back for the river when the weather perked up.

Wyatt, Austin and Jess arrived at the shed at lunchtime - they’d been picked up from the canoe launch point. Austin and Jess were also over the waiting and joined the others in booking a bus. We had a couple of hours with 13 TA hikers - I couldn’t imagine being with this many ever again!

The 6 of us remaining spent the rest of the day eating the snacks we’d bought for the river, playing cards and visiting puppies.