Te Araroa Day 42, John Coull to Ramanui

Starring km: 1276?
Finishing km: 1298?
km covered today: 32

First a note about all these question marks in the distances. On the canoe trip we weren't quite following the official TA route.  We'd entered the river about 50km early, and while I gather the route for the lower part of the river has now been changed from roadwalking to canoeing, my slightly older maps don't reflect this, so I won't have spot on distances for the next bit of the trip.

Neither will I have lots of photos. While I do have a waterproof case for my phone, it's an Aliexpress special, and I while it's fine for using in rain I don't trust it well enough to risk it being submerged in a muddy, fast flowing river after being dumped out of a canoe while going over rapids, so my phone spent most of the 5-day canoe trip in one of the waterproof barrels.

Anyhow, more about the day itself:
The John Coull Hut was possibly the sharpest looking DOC hut I've ever seen.  Not as fancy as some of the other Great Walks huts, but sparkling in a way that made it look brand new. 

We left it behind and paddled on into the gorge.  Which was truly spectacular.  Cloaked in dense bush it rose straight up out of the water for 300m and more. Dark green and dotted with bright red patches of rata (a larger pohutukawa relative) in bloom, the women both said it looked like deep, dark jungle.

For the most part this bush is completely inaccessible except by river, however in the afternoon we got to check out one of the few (sort of) exceptions.

In the 1920s much of the area around the river was deeded to returning WW1 soldiers. They began the (uphill battle) to farm the land and slowly the government improved the infrastructure. One of the final improvements was a bridge to help access the upper river. Unfortunately, as it was being completed, erosion, other changes in the land and a slowdown of riverboat service on the Whanganui made it unfeasible to continue farming. So the veterans all left, leaving the Kiwi bush to reclaim their land. And the bridge. Which gives us NZs famous Bridge to Nowhere, about a 30 minute walk up a (now well maintained) track from the boat dock.  It's a major tourist attraction, so while we were alone at the dock when we tied up our canoes, there were about 20 people at the bridge (most had come in by jet boat).  Apparently in a month or two's time it would not be unusual to see 100 tourists or more at the bridge.

The afternoon's canoeing was great too. More spectacular gorge, more fun rapids. But I'll save further discussion of these, as there was even more of them the next day.

We finished off the day at the Ramanui campsite. It's across the river from the official Great Walk site, which is pretty cool in its own right, being located on a marae.

But we had hot showers and could pop up to the Bridge to Nowhere Lodge for a beer (and for Paul to steal some snacks left behind by Lodge guests, which is what he's looking so mischievous about in the photo). Oh, and they had a pet deer with a collar and a very friendly disposition. So I think our campsite won.