Kayaking Down The Pelorus River
Updated: Feb 13
After our 3-hour ferry ride, we made our way to Nelson – the dwarfish country, as Josh from Red Carpet calls it, filled with vast landscapes and rolling mountains.
When we arrived, we hopped onto the bus of fellow travelers on our trip who were kayaking down the Pelorus River. This is the same stretch of river where Thorin and company escaped the woodland realm in giant barrels. The Pelorus River is a 4+ mile trip, rated 2/10 on the difficulty scale. We were accompanied by Kayak-New Zealand, who guided us down the river, making stops to show us where Thorin and company made their way to a rock formation where they were picked up by Bard and smuggled into Lake Town.
Now, this voyage was adventurous, to say the least. My Mom, who is 1ft+ shorter than me, took the back seat in the kayak. They said the person in the back is the rudder and determines where the kayak goes. Meanwhile, my Mom, who gets lost in a shoebox is going to direct our journey... what's the worst that can happen?
We found out very soon that my Mom cannot paddle a kayak to save her life. For every one of her paddles, there were three of mine, so we were not in sync – from going left to going right, to even going in circles. After making a quick stop to show us where Thorin and company stopped on their voyage, we hopped into our kayaks to finish the last stretch on our trip. This time I steered, trying to tell my Mom to paddle in some type of rhythm. We had a good run for a bit before we got out of rhythm. On the last stretch of water, as we were coming to the end of our voyage, my Mom exclaimed, "Oh man! We're done already? I was really getting the hang of this!"
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