How a series of mistakes led to a terrifying accident – and made this father a better tramper.

On a tramp some while ago, I nearly killed our daughter.

There are more than five years between Helen and her older brother Pete. For a while they would both come with me on easy walks over the lower slopes of Taranaki Maunga, Pete loping along while his sister trotted eagerly between us.

When he was a teenager, Pete and I tramped the Around the Mountain Track and the Matemateonga Walkway. As we departed, Helen watched wistfully, saying: “I can do that when I’m bigger, can’t I, Dad?”

By the time Pete left home, his tramping was something for weekends with his mates. Helen, now 13, still wanted to follow in his footsteps. We did a few day walks in the Kaitake and an overnighter to Pouakai Hut, where she exclaimed with delight to see herself and the mountain reflected in the mirror-still tarns.

Helen wanted to try river-bashing; had read about it in a story. So one January morning my wife Beth dropped us off where the Waiwhakaiho River curves past Egmont Village. She would meet us at a bridge about 3km upstream.

The Waiwhakaiho is wide and shallow, except after snowmelt or storm, with a bed of big smooth boulders and little curves of sand.

For nearly an hour we sloshed upstream in gentle water that was no more than knee-deep, moving easily around the big sun-warmed rocks and joking about who looked clumsier. She chattered away about starting high school. It’s not often that a father has the chance for a long talk with his teenage daughter, and we were both enjoying it.

We came to a place where the river became narrower, deeper, faster. Bush-covered banks about 10m high rose on either side where the water had sliced through a mud-flow after some long-ago eruption.

It wasn’t a big problem. We would leave the riverbed, climb the bank, make our way along the top and down to the river again. We could see where it widened and slowed 40m further upstream.

We had taken longer than I expected to reach this point, and the detour would slow us further. Beth would soon be waiting at the bridge where we were due to meet. There was no way of telling her where we were. We needed to hurry.

As any tramper knows, that was my first silly mistake. I urged my daughter out of the water, and we began to climb the bank.

Helen was small. The handholds within easy reach for me were a stretch for her. My second mistake was not to stay with her to make sure she was managing. Instead, I scrambled to the top and saw that the way ahead was tangled and would take a while. I fretted again at how time was ticking by.

I peered down. Helen had struggled halfway up and was straining to reach the next branch. I swung down a few metres, stretched out a hand and said, “Come on, love. Mum will be worrying.” 

It was my third, nearly fatal mistake.

I remember her looking up, startled. She let go of the branch, grabbed my hand, lost her grip and fell.

In the nightmares I had for weeks afterwards, it all seemed to happen in slow motion. Her eyes widened, her arms went out, her mouth opened in terror as she plummeted towards the riverbed five metres below.

All I could see beneath her were rocks and boulders. My daughter was about to smash into them. She’d be broken, killed, and it was all my fault.

Miraculously, she landed on a stretch of sand hardly bigger than her body. I flung myself down after her, my eyes bulging with fear.

She was gulping and crying when I reached her but already starting to sit up. “I’m sorry,” she gasped. She was apologising to me.

I knelt with my arms around her. Her shoulder hurt, she said, but she was all right. We climbed slowly up the bank, along the top, back down into the river again. I kept hold of her arm. She panted as we moved, but after a few minutes she repeated: “I’m all right.”

Beth was waiting at the bridge, staring anxiously downstream. I didn’t know what to say. She hugged Helen, who sobbed a bit and said, “I fell down the bank. Dad got me up again.”

She was bruised and shaken, but she recovered with a 13-year-old’s resilience. The next day I told her how sorry I was, how I’d broken so many basic rules of tramping. Never rush. Do everything at a pace that’s safe for the most junior member. Keep an eye on others and put yourself in their place. She gave me the tolerant smile that kids give their useless parents. “It’s okay, Dad. I knew you’d look after me.” That made me feel worse than ever.

We kept tramping for a while longer. Pete joined us a couple of times. “She’s quite good, eh?” he said to me with a condescending nod towards his young sister.

Actually, she was better than quite good. She was brave and sensible and forgiving. She made me a better, more careful tramper in the years that followed. I just wish it hadn’t needed to happen in such a terrifying way.