We recently took a day trip with Blazing Paddles on the Whanganui river launching at Taumaranui & travelling approx 4 hours down river to a campsite where we were picked up.

The guy who dropped us off who I believe was the owner was in a bad mood, very rude & in a big hurry to get us on the river & out of his hair, his mood was not improved when he realised part of the canadian canoe that we were to use was broken & he had to go back & change it. The women who took our money at the end of the journey who I believe is his wife (& therefore a perfect match for him) was extremely rude as well. The guy who picked us up at then end of the trip was also grumpy & spent his time moaning that he had exceeded the amount of hours he could legally drive on that day, but with a boss like his I can not blame him. After a spill out of the double canadian canoe one of our party members did not want to continue & while we on the side of the river contacting blazing paddles for a pick up of the two passengers of the canoe a very nice guy came accross the river in a boat to see if we were ok, it turned out that this guy was from Taumaranui canoe hire, we explained our situation & he offered for the company jet boat to pick up the two from the canoe take them to their house which happened to be directly opposite, he then took the C Canoe over to the other side of the river for Blazing Paddles to pick up. They then offered to have the person who did not want to continue to down the river to spend the day at their house, lent us a extra single kayak for the other person & we all continued down the river. In the end we all had a fabulous day thanks to Taumaranui canoe hire who would not take any money for the kayak that we used for the day, they are extremely nice family & I would use them for our next trip without any hesitation.

Reviewed almost 12 years ago