THE CANOE CRUISER.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 70, 24 March 1931, Page 6

THE CANOE CRUISER.

A young Englishman has travelled, two thousand miles in this North Island, a large portion of it in a canoe along river, lake and tidal estuary. "Six months a free and easy life" is his description of his cruise. In this age of the motor car and the swift power la-unch the leisurely pleasures of paddling one's own canoe on our New Zealand waters are not widely appreciated. Yet there are some who, like that Englishman, have discovered by experience the peculiar attractions of roving and exploring the many travel-ways provided by Nature in this varied land of ours. For one thing, the independence of the canoe man is an obvious advantage in this free and easy travel. He has no time-tables to observe, no traffic by-laws to worry about, no speed limits, no hotel conventions to observe, no dressing up, no license fees for this and that — unless, perhaps, he is an angler and a gunner as well as a paddler, and possesses the sportsman's conscience. He makes and breaks camp when and where he pleases, he eats when he is hungry and not at other people's set hours. He is the tru daylight saver. The horseman, the tramper, the man in the small boat, they are the travellers who cultivate a real intimacy with the wilds, and who find even in the seemingly well-tamed parts the little adventures and experiences that the" motorist rolling smoothly over easy roads seldom finds along the way. For the canoe man, on a river unknown to him, every bend rounded is an adventure; there, are all kinds of curious glimpses of the life of the country through which hie water highway winds. But he must have the leisured mind, he must not hanker after the town and must be able to do without the world's news for a few days at any rate. He probably will discover that, after all, he has not miesed much that is really vital. When he comes to catch up on his cablegram reading he will discover that Mr. Scullin or Mr. Lang are only a little deeper in the soup than they were the previous week, that Dean Inge has only said once more that things are all to hell everywhere, and that the Chicago gangsters have put a few more judges and policemen on their pay roll. One may just as well be loafin ri ignorant and care free in the shade somewhere along the banks of the Waipa or the Waihou, playing the ukulele or the Jew's harp or the bagpipes the while, for camp life is not complete without music, or its substitute. The choice of cruising waters is wide and varied, although that too-well-acclimatised vegetable the weeping willow has ruined some of the navigable streams where flotilla.? of Maori canoes were busy in other days. The slower-running rivers are always in danger of being blocked in this way. Inland voyages are easy along many tidal rivers; greatest of all the Northern Wairoa, where the influence of the tide is felt as far up as the Mangakahia junction, over eighty miles from the sea. The Waikato and its tributaries are navigable for a hundred milee; the Wangariui and the Ongarue for a hundred and fifty. The thrill of coming down the Wanganui or the Mokau in a canoe is an experience worth all the trouble and the expense of railing or carting the craft to the headwaters. I would not advise any canoeist, however, to attempt the ascent of the Wanganui from the sea. Four of us once paddled and poled a Maori canoe up the Mokau from the heads to a point forty-five miles inland, and although there were thirty rapids to climb the current in most parts was less swift than the Wanganui. The head of navigation on the Mokau is seventy feet above sea level. But Taumarunui, on the Wanganui, is about 470 feet; the distance is 130 miles from the sea. The Manawatu used to be a great canoe traffic river; now the widening and shoaling of the lower parts have spoiled it altogether. In the South Island there is the Buller —a dangerous river. There is the Grey, with its tributary the Arnold, by which Lake Brunner may be reached. Adventurous canoeists have come down the Hurunui and the glacial Waimakariri, and further south the swift Waitaki and the Waiau from the lakes, and the rolling Clutha; but on the whole the canoe man would do wisely to restrict his travels to our North Island streams. As to choice of canoe, the Canadian's favourite Peterborough—the modern successor of the famous Indian birch-bark —has been tried with satisfaction on some of our rivers and lakes. I have been out in one on Wellington Harbour, which is not the pleasantest of waters for a canoe. The ordinary canvas canoe is generally used in these parts. The pioneers of canvas-and-timber craft on the Wanganui were the late Mr. J. W. Ellis, the King Country settler and sawmiller, and a party of two or three others, who in the 'eighties put their home-made canoes in the water just below the last rapids on the Ongarue, some ten miles above Taumarunui, and went down to Wanganui town. But for travel on most of our rivers and small lakes I would prefer the ordinary dug-out Maori canoo. It will stand hard knocks; snags will not puncture it as they do the canvas boat (or the power launch), a bump from a rock will not nieiin total wreck or troublesome repairs. The old "waka Maori" is the ship for rapid-shooting and for comfort and roominess in a leisurely cruise. But don't select one of those sandpapered under-and-ovor hurdle jumpers they use at the Ngaruawahia regatta.