Bridge to Nowhere in Whanganui National Park

By 9:30am we were in Pipiriki at the cafe from where our jet boat was to go. We met Ben (Bin as they say here) and our two fellow travellers (from Germany and very, very quiet). We made our sandwiches, packed our hats and sun tan cream (as we were praying for sun after the miserable day yesterday and a greyish start to the day), put on our life jackets and walked down to the river and our bright yellow jet boat.
We whizzed up the river through the most fantastic steep sided gorges loaded with ferns and fern trees.
Most of the area right next to the river was natural bush but you could see the affects of settlement with huge fir trees up at the top of the hills and some opened up grasslands (which would all have to have been planted).

We entered into a small side river in a beautiful small gorge with steep sides and a small stream emptying in at the end. Here, we were told, a film called the River Queen had some scenes filmed with Maori rowing their waka (canoe) up and down. Will just have to watch that now.

Then on, about an hour up the river to the landing at the end of the valley where the steam boats used to stop to load and unload the unfortunates who tried to farm the valley of the Bridge to Nowhere. We were shown some huge metal hooks in the wall where metal cables were attached so the steam boats could attach their winches and pull themselves up the rapids.

We walked 40 mins along a track through lush bush (but secondary growth - though I wouldn't have known that if we hadn't been told) to the Bridge to Nowhere. The story of the area was slowly revealed to us as we walked.

After the first world war the valley was surveyed and split into plots. Returning servicemen were allowed to lease plots to buy at a later date. They were given time to clear the land and as soon as they were able to put sheep on the land they would start to pay the lease. The only way into the valley was either a walk from one end (total length from one end of the valley to the other was 70km) or a two day ferry ride up the river to the landing where we arrived. These people had to walk or use mules / horses to bring everything in until the government made the gravel road in the early 1920s with swing bridges or pulley on a wire type systems to cross the streams. However by the mid 1920s lots of the farmers were just giving up and moving out. The government decided to finance the building of the bridge over the largest gap in the road and so 'the bridge to nowhere' was built. In the middle of construction the road further up the valley was washed out by a big storm and the valley residents had to appeal for more funds. By the time the road was mended and the bridge was finished 8 people attended the opening (half of them were the builders of the bridge!), most of the other residents had given up and left. Two cars went over the bridge, turned round and went back again, and then apart from foot and animal traffic the bridge was never really used ... it was just too late, the residents had gone!
10 years after the bridge was built it was covered in a layer of grass, by the 1940s the government forced the final 3 residents out of the valley and declared the place a national park. It was only in the 1960s that the old road was cleaned up and made into a walking path and it became what we see today, a bridge in the middle of nowhere.

We ate our sandwiches and drank tea as the sun came out; we sat on the bridge and flicked through old photos showing some of the houses and lives of the early settlers here. At one stage there was even enough kids to open a single room schoolhouse here and a mail man (on horseback) used to visit twice week.

Then back to the river and 40 mins back down the river to our canoe and kayak. We had 10km to paddle and as long as we wanted to do it. Tris and I were not very good at keeping our canoe in a straight line so we ended up tying on to the back of Celso's kayak and he kept us on a fairly straight course. As we went down the river we passed 5 sets of rapids that slowly got more and more hairy (but nothing too big), Tristan and I ended up going down one nearly backwards but we coped quite well I think.
We had a couple of great stop offs in some riverside caves, one that was just full of mud and the other with a beautiful waterfall inside and rocks full of fossils outside.
Just as I thought I couldn't paddle a stroke more the end came into sight and we gratefully tied up our boats at the jetty and trudged up the hill to the van.
We then drove for a couple of hours to the south along first a gravel then a paved road that ran along the Whanganui river to the town of Whanganui, it was a beautiful drive but a little hairy along a very thin winding road with people coming in the other dirrection far too fast.
We finally found a campsite just after dark outside a little village called Bulls.