Days 3 & 4 "Autumn" Break and Shannon's trip Down Under

Hello again!!

So days 3 & 4 consisted of some time in the Whanganui National Park on the North Island of New Zealand!

We began by driving down this CRAZY road where at one point we thought we were lost b/c there was no sign of human life ANYWHERE! We eventually made it to Pipiriki where we were told to go to coffee shop as a meeting place. Ok, literally....this was a trailer with a hand made sign saying coffee shop!

Anyway, we made our way there and boarded a jet boat which sped us up the Whanganui River. This river was pretty spectacular as it runs from Central North Island New Zealand clear out to the Tasman sea. We found out that it was once used as a highway by boats to get around!

The boat took us up to an attraction known as the Bridge to Nowhere...and literally...here is a concrete bridge suitable for cars to be driven on and it goes into NOTHINGNESS!! By the way, on our 40 minute walk out there we had to dodge a goat on our path!

Here is a quick history of the Bridge to Nowhere:

This bridge is the unofficial flagship of Whanganui National Park, an iconic symbol for New Zealand adventure tourism and a major visitor destination on the Whanganui Journey.
It is still used as a trampers’ bridge at the southern access point to the Mangapurua Valley.

It was constructed in the mid-1930s to provide road access to the lower and middle valley farms known as the Mangapurua Valley Soldiers Settlement.

By the time it was completed these areas of the Mangapurua Valley were deserted, the bridge rarely used and the construction of the road to the Whanganui River abandoned.

Following our tour, we made it back to the only Lodge within the National Park. This place was spectacular! Completely isolated, right on the river. This had to be the best ever spot to sleep. We used our afternoon to recover from our previous day's 19.4km hike and did some sunbathing, reading, relaxing, playing scrabble!! :) At night you could hear the Bucks in the forest calling out for their mates!

The following morning Shannon and I got up early and canoed down the Whanganui River for 4 hours back to our drop-off location!! Beautiful and VERY tiring!! My arms were screaming!!