No Villages, No Settlements, Not Even Roads

Welcome to New Zealand. Today we are on the Whanganui River. And we are going to be canoeing for five days — in about five minutes. The Whanganui River, twisting over a hundred kilometers through New Zealand’s North Island, connecting a volcano with the coast. Along the way, there are no villages, no settlements, not even any roads. So take a minute to listen, to embrace the silence, the solitude, to feel everything unwind as you drift down the river.

The classic Whanganui canoeing expedition takes five days. And being very honest with you, it is not luxurious. Not typically luxurious, anyway. No roads, no hotels, no lodges. All you have on the way are campsites in the wilderness where you can have a very comfortable tent on the river, and some washroom facilities.

Out here there are no phones, no wifi — nothing but the wild, nothing but a complete escape into nature. There were some sections where you’ll go two or three days before you connect to anything else. So you’re on the river and it’ll take two days before you get to the next takeout point. Like, you are going deep, you’re going deep and you’re going to be fully immersed in this river, in this nature, in this absolutely wonderful serenity. With the Whanganui River, when you go canoeing, the luxury is in the experience.

There’s Nothing To Think About

The luxury is how slow you travel. That languorous journey. It’s waking up each morning and knowing there is nothing to think about. There’s nothing to worry about. All you have to do is get in the canoe, get in the canoe and go down river. You can’t even get lost. You just go down river. You can’t go up the river — well, you can try. You might struggle.

There were some parts with rapids, suddenly it gets quite thrilling, quite exciting. You hear it coming from a long way. And then the rapids come and you’ve got to navigate through them. You spin a bit, nothing too hard, even for a complete beginner, but a little interruption in the day. So you keep going and then you find a sandbank. Yeah, why not? Let’s stop here. Stop here in the sun, have lunch on the sandbank. In the Whanganui River, miles and miles from any road. Keep going, arrive at the campsite and just stop and relax. Feel how great it is to retreat fully into nature.

Wake up the next day and just paddle. Just keep paddling. I was really looking to do the Whanganui River four years ago. Paddling down for five days, a real recharge. I know now, I mean, I know as soon as New Zealand reopens to tourism, it’s an experience that I think will really jump in popularity. We see now that people really start to value more this opportunity to escape away from people, to do things where they can be completely alone rather than among the maddening crowd.

There Is Nothing But Nature

So when New Zealand does open, you know, I expect that there are going to be more canoes on the Whanganui River. But the great thing is, you can’t have that many people there, because you have to stay at a designated camp spot and that designated camp spot has to be booked in advance. So at any one time, the number of people on the river is very well controlled. And when I was doing it — especially because everyone’s going down river, no one’s coming up river past you — doing it with my girlfriend, we would go four or five hours without encountering another person, another canoe, another anything.

And that was the appeal. It’s not for everyone. Some people don’t like going so much in sort of — well, some people don’t like the idea of camping. Some people don’t like the idea of such an expedition. And if that’s you, then why would you canoe for five days? But if that is you, if you are the sort of person who likes a real adventure and really wants to be out in nature — and not just for half a day — out in nature in a way that there is nothing but nature, this is a great thing to add to your bucketlist. A great thing to help you feel humbled by the power of nature and everything that is around us.

Experience Something That’s Being Lost

You can find the Whanganui River canoe expedition on Kated. The classic expedition, you will have a team of guides who go with you, and then they go ahead, they set up the camp, make sure you are really comfortable, also help with taking all the things you’ll need. Because if you’ve never canoed for five days down a river, it’s really difficult to know what to pack.

So just to have guides who will take care of that for you is a huge — it just takes all the stress away. You can just turn up, get in your canoe. You don’t even need to paddle, you’ll drift down river anyway. Leave your phone. Don’t take that. Forget about the wifi, you’re not going to get it. But you are going to be comfortable and you are going to experience something that’s actually being lost from our world.

Wilderness is being lost from our world. There is not much untouched wilderness left, and the Whanganui river is one place where there is wilderness, where it is accessible and where you take off and you don’t need to worry about anything else. Until five days later when you reach a road and you see the sign on the side of the river that says, “this is where you get out”. Or at least the guides tell you this is where you get out.

Check it out on Kated, the Whanganui River five-day canoe expedition, it’s in New Zealand, along with a lot of other great moments to add to your bucketlist. We can’t travel to New Zealand right now, but we can dream. We can dream that one day we will be able to make that trip again.