Kayaks at Abel Tasman National Park. Photo / 123RF
Kayaks at Abel Tasman National Park. Photo / 123RF
As the Tokyo Olympics draw to a close, our Kiwi champions will have no doubt inspired a new generation of athletes.
Led by the now quintuple Olympic gold medallist, Lisa Carrington of Ohope, there would be little surprise to see an uptake in kayaking and canoeing over the coming months,given her incredible success in Tokyo.
In honour of our golden week on the water, get out your paddles for these top four recreational trips in New Zealand that the Herald Travel team has done in the last year.
Rangitīkei River, Canterbury
With the roar of the water nearly drowning out his voice, our guide explains that we have two options. We can walk our boat through the rapid, safely avoiding the jagged rocks. Or we can paddle through it — a challenge that carries with it a high likelihood of submersion in the icy water or, worse, head injury.
We're on the shores of the Rangitīkei, somewhere between Taihape and Mangaweka. The river is perhaps best known for its fishing, but we're here because it's one of the only places in the country where you can white-water canoe.
Yes, you read that correctly. We aren't travelling in a soft bouncy raft or even a nimble kayak. Our watercraft of choice for this adventure is a rigid-sided Canadian canoe, packed to the gunwales with supplies for our multi-day trip.
Canoeing down the Rangitikei River. Photo / Canoe Safaris
Hauraki Gulf, Auckland
Sitting on Kohimarama beach, planning a kayak trip, it's hard not to feel overwhelmed by choice. The waters of the Hauraki Gulf are full of hundreds of islands. Even those within a couple of hours' paddling distance read more like the plot of Gulliver's Travels than a list of real places.
There are magmatic caves, isolated beaches, island sanctuaries of exotic life. In the Gulf you'll find pockets of re-introduced takahe, ancient tuatara, peacocks and Ponui donkeys. For those looking for a substitute for cancelled plans to Australia, I've even been told there's even the odd marsupial. Kawau Island and its wallabies are as exotic as any overseas trip. Though, in their own way I suppose all these islands are "overseas". If only a few hundred metres at a time.
Returning from Browns Island with Auckland Sea Kayaks. Photo / Thomas Bywater
Whanganui River
Phil Collins — no, not that one – doesn't consider himself to be a spiritual person. Well, he's Australian, after all.
Scarred by growing up during a 10-year drought that led to farmers walking off their land, he's spent much of his life since immersed in water. Two days after landing in New Zealand to work as a guide for Canoe Safaris in Ohakune, he was out on the Whanganui River navigating a 7m flood in conditions he describes as "pretty daunting".
Collins now owns the company, and he reckons the river is much cleaner than when he arrived seven years ago, under no illusions even then that New Zealand's "100% Pure" image was anything more than aspirational.
He never used to see kōtare (kingfishers), which live here in numbers now, and trout are being caught further and further downstream. Possum raids on cook shelters in the campgrounds are less prevalent, too. He once worked as a chef in London at a trendy restaurant in Chelsea, so you can't blame his cooking for that.
There's an almost meditative rhythm to paddling the Whanganui, with its long, still stretches between the rapids and the light casting perfect mirror reflections on the water. Collins has learnt how to read the river's mercurial geography and come to know its shifting moods: hazy summers with the hypnotic thrum of cicadas; brooding winters where mist hangs low in the gorge and swollen waterfalls scour the steep, moss-covered walls.
Canadian canoes are the main form of transport for paddlers on the Whanganui River. Photo / Joanna Wane
Abel Tasman, Nelson
Exploring the Abel Tasman National Park a couple of summers ago, I was delighted and dismayed. Delighted, because — well, we all know why, we've seen the photos. Kayaks apparently floating on air, the turquoise-tinged sea is so clear. Curious weka eyeing you from leafy green bush. A well-maintained track curving along a headland overlooking an untouched lagoon. White water tumbling down a natural rockslide.
When I did the Abel Tasman Kayaks three-day adventure with my daughter, I found that it was all true. We spent two days kayaking along the coast and staying in DoC camps, before walking back on the third day to the pick-up point from where we were returned to civilisation. It was all just gorgeous. The sea was that blue, the sand that golden, the bush that green and lush and full of birds.
