What a cow of a day in bullock country

By COLIN MOORE

Don't worry about cats being killed - it's cows who are curious. Ask any cyclist or walker who has stopped on a lane in cow country. And ask any kayaker meandering their way to Helensville down the Kaipara River.

Perhaps it is because the only creatures usually afloat on this muddy waterway are ducks and a few geese.

But when one cow spots our leisurely passage and comes to the riverbank to investigate she must give a silent signal to her sisters that says something like: "Oh girls, you must come and take a look at this."

Before we can move on, the riverbank is lined with nosey bovines jostling for a peek.

Well may they look because we probably are an odd sight on a windswept and damp Sunday. But there is some method in our madness.

The most immediate is the wind. Plan A was to paddle across to Tiritiri Matangi Island and lunch among the birds and regenerating native bush.

A brisk north-easterly that kicks up whitecaps on the inner harbour puts paid to that idea. The Tiri Passage is no place to take a sea kayak in inclement weather.

So we go for Plan B, chapter three of a journey that began a few years ago, to follow in the bullock-steps and paddle-strokes of the Albertland settlers and the Maori travellers who preceded them over several centuries.

This is an unhurried adventure, but that doesn't matter - there is no time limit and no prize when we get to Port Albert on the Kaipara Harbour.

Our journey began on the Waitemata Harbour with our kayak hulls wet by the waters of the Pacific Ocean. We have since portaged and paddled our way down the Kaipara River towards the waters of the Tasman Sea on an ancient highway to the north.

When the Albertland settlers followed the route they cursed the section from the Waitemata to Helensville as the portage from hell, for here their bullock wagons floundered in the swamp. We avoid mud on our feet by paddling along the perverse river meanderings that are the cause of the swamp.

For chapter three we rejoin the watercourse at Wharepapa, where about 1m of mud is exposed on the banks. The best way to get into the stream without sinking up to our waists is to climb aboard our kayaks and make a steep seal launch through the watercress and down the mudslide.

What current there is seems to be in our favour. It is uneventful and uninspiring paddling but the wind blowing over the top of the grass and reeds on the riverbanks suggest that kayaking to Tiri might have been much too eventful.

Curious cows make a diversion and so do ducks. Why do rabbits and sheep rush blindly in front of an approaching car - or ducks in front of a kayak - then pause for so long instead of realising that they only need to move to one side to avoid the enemy?

Mum and dad paradise duck, quacking and flapping away, send their young family swimming off down the river in front of us, their juvenile webbed feet peddling faster than the fastest cartoon duck in a big hurry.

When we get too close, the youngsters come up with a variation on the rabbit solution, diving under the murky water. By the time they surface we have paddled over the top of them and mum and dad fly back to congratulate their brood on their good "road sense."

We don't seem to have been on the river long before we can see the houses of Helensville on the slopes behind the town. But we know this river better than to assume this is going to be a short chapter, because the river turns its back on Helensville and we head back towards the Waitemata and navigate a huge oxbow.

Now the wind is in our face and so is the current. The tide on the Kaipara must have turned, although the vegetation remains that of freshwater swamp.

As an island of water grass floats upstream with the wind, we muse that water buffalo might thrive here.

The mat of grass on the side of the river is so thick that we can paddle into it and climb out on top to stop for lunch.

A steam train that has taken enthusiasts to Helensville chugs past on its return to Auckland. You don't see those in the Tiri Passage.

Helensville is less than a kilometre away before the river again turns south. The oxbow returns, perhaps no more than 50m away. Maori paddlers must have jumped out and hauled their waka across the swamp to rejoin the river. We briefly comtemplate doing the same, but that would be cheating, wouldn't it?

So we paddle on until we reach the first of the mangroves. Then it's around a few more bends to the Hellensville wharf near the old dairy factory. This spot was once a thriving marine terminal carrying goods up and down the Kaipara and into the Tasman Sea. Now there are only a few fishing boats.

Here the Albertlanders left their bullock drays and boarded boats for the rest of the journey. But for us that's a future chapter.

Curiously, the tide is clearly on the way out although there hardly seems enough time for it to have turned again. Yet when we drive back to Wharepapa to retrieve a vehicle the muddy riverbanks are under water and the current is moving upstream

This is indeed a perverse waterway and, like the Albertlanders, we are thankful to be done with it.