Canoe Trip in the Bay of Plenty - Day 280© NZPocketGuide.com
Canoe Trip in the Bay of Plenty - Day 280

Canoe Trip in the Bay of Plenty – Day 280

© NZPocketGuide.com

Day 280 on the Road

Canoeing in Opotiki

Today we are taking a canoe trip in the Bay of Plenty region near Opotiki! If you like this video and want to see more 365 Days: 365 Activities, then simply check out our epic YouTube Channel and all its fixings!

Today we are following a bunch of locals throughout the whole Waioeka Gorge that can’t be right. The whole Waioeka Gorge. What? Alright.

Today is a true New Zealand story. When we arrived in opotiki we met the owner of the Royal Opotiki Backpackers and he introduced us to his mate Grant that has a few canoes and said that he wanted to go down the Waioeka River so we simply asked “hey mate can e join you?” and he said “of course”.

Alright guys we have helmets for everyone but they are optional in this trip.

As you can see it’s a pretty unofficial tour but he’s taking his stuff really seriously and getting us to do a few bonding exercises.

Left Right Left Right Left Right.

I knew it.

Nice catch.

Oh my God.

So that’s greeting in New Zealand. That’s how you say Hi in the morning at work.

After those bonding exercises that got way too intimate we can finally jump into our canoes and start making our way down the absolutely stunning Waioeka River. Already the scenery is outstanding and the sun is our so we need to take off a few layers cos this is gonna be some pretty hard work paddling these canoes but we are surrounded by this Jurassic like landscape with all these native trees and towering mountains around us.

Grant and his partner Dido are taking the lead showing us which lines to take of the river and we basically just follow them through the safest passage of the Waioeka Gorge.

While Robin and I have done quite a few kayaking tours now, paddling a Canadian canoe is a lot different and a lot of fun as well we are really having a banterful time with our fellow tour goers but it also tests our communication you really need to be able to communicate if you are two people paddling on a canoe.

Yeah so basically there is a lot of communication involved and if you don’t communicate very well you end up in the bushes which definitely happened to Laura and I quite a few times but Grant and his partner Dido have a lot of tips and insights about using the canoe and also know the gorge like the back of their hand so they always show us a lot of really fun places to check out there are plenty of rapids which are really cool and rather hard to maneuver and it’s just an overall amazing experience. it’s quite rare that you get to actually experience places with the locals.

But about halfway through the trip we are stopping our trip we are getting out of the canoe and we are making camp. We are not going to be staying here for the night but we are staying here for lunch. We did a little pot luck which means that everybody brings something to share with everyone. because we are on a budget and we have a campervan we actually didn’t bake anything we went to buy a couple of cakes. i have to be honest that is not the best cake ever an d that is not the best presentation ever when trying cut it with a spoon and Laura is the first one to complain.

The dry bit on the bottom. Thank you.

It’s days like this that just make you want to stay in New Zealand forever when you see what sort of stuff the locals get up to on their days off it’s really awesome and if you haven’t figured out already New Zealand is a super outdoorsy country and the locals often do have awesome gear to take you to awesome places.

However, if you don’t have access to canoes there’s plenty of other things that you can be doing along the Waioeka River and the Waioeka River Gorge. As you saw the other day we actually took a road trip through the Waioeka Gorge and there’s loads of different walks that you can be doing amongst the Tauranga Bridge walk, there’s also another bridge walk called the Little Manganuku Track and there’s plenty more which we list in our 15 Opotiki Walks that you Can’t Miss which we’ll link up in the description below.

By this part of the trip through we are getting a lot more confident on our canoes and we’re splashing each other and just being a nuisance to everyone but at this point also Grant is showing us a few more of the hidden gems of the Waioeka River for instance we find a little waterfall which is perfect to actually go and bathe in the plunge pool.

Kiwis are absolutely crazy and they do not shy away at the chance to jump into freezing cold plunge pool of a waterfall but luckily there are plenty of ways to warm back up again which is getting back into our canoe and getting to the end of this awesome Waioeka River Gorge journey.

One of the really interesting things about the Waioeka Gorge is that it’s really reminiscent to the Whanganui Journey which is one of the 10 New Zealand Great Walks in fact the only one of the 10 New Zealand Great Walks which is not a walk but more of a canoe trip. And the canoe that we are currently using were used on the Whanganui Journey a few years ago before Grant bought them.

So we didn’t get to do the Whanganui Journey we kind of did that’s the Waioeka Gorge for you guys. no I’m joking, we’re still gonna try to go there we have some time around the area a little bit later on in our trip so fingers crossed we’ll get to the Whanganui at some point. But just enough time for us to wrap up and get ourselves ready for our next adventure tomorrow.

There was a couple of travellers that we seeking and looking hard and long and long and hard for the ultimate answer what is the best New Zealand attraction?

Their adventurous endeavor will bring them to…

Opotiki.

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