Mohaka River Too Tough For Canoeists

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30107, 16 April 1963, Page 12

Mohaka River Too Tough For Canoeists

(Neui Zealand Press Association)

AUCKLAND, April 15.

The tempestuous Mohaka river tossed and battered four Auckland and four Wairoa canoeists at the week-end for 33 miles of the toughest paddling and portages they have ever experienced. They carried their canoes ashore at Willow Flat, 17 miles short of Wairoa. after 24 capsizes, four smashed or bxily -damaged canoes, and two sets of broken paddles. The party set out from the Mohaka river bridge on the Napier-Taupo highway on Friday and made good progress for the first six miles. Then the going became rough.

Four miles further. Mr Frank Smart, of the North Shore Canoe Club, came to grief in a tight rapid. Rocks ripped open the deck of his canoe and smashed the iriside.

Mr Smart began walking out and found four deerstalkers in a similar predicament. Their sturdy 12ft by 12ft raft had been tumbled by the river and they lost a lot of their gear. They joined forces for the tramp to the road.

■Hie leader of the group. Mr W. O’Connell, snapped the bracing and gunwale of his boat in more rapids, causing a premature overnight stop. “From there down, we met the worst going any of us had ever struck,” said a member of the group, Mr G. Maire. of the North Shore club. It took the canoeists three hours to negotiate a half-mile portage among huge boulders. “After thait we had five or

x miles of great going in fast and furious rapids,” said Mr Maire.

But in a big rapid two more of the party tangled with the rocks. Mr Miles Usher, from the Auckland Canoe Club, smashed the stern of his boat, and Mr Allan Pearson, of the Wairoa club, smashed the middle of his craft so that it folded up. The group decided today about a mile above Willow Flat to dismantle the canoes the set off home.