This text was read by OCR from a scanned newsletter and has not been proofread yet, so expect odd characters and mistakes.
Just to prove he was still capable and because he was getting paid for it anyway, the Editor led a Service “endurance” trip from one side of the National Park to the other. 7 We began the nine-day trip at the Mt. White Bridge over the Waimak and followed the well defined track over the Binser Saddle and into the Poulter River Valley. Following a really beaut camp on a grass shelf at the confluence of the McArthur Gorge/Poulter, we bush-bashed our way up and over the Poulter Range, finding a 1940 Fairy Gordon biplane crash site enroute. 7 The climb from the Poulter to the Cox took six hours which we capped with an hour-long stroll up the Cox in the afternoon light. That night camped near the Row Stream we watched rabbits dancing I on the moon-lit river flats as sandflies wriggled up under balaclavas, long johns and jerseys.
The: bush-bash up the 3500 foot’ contour’ and into the upper Row Stream valley was a real curse as*Beech tree windfalls stacked three or four déep barred quick progress.’ ‘Although we didn’t see deer on the hoof, our crashing around must have spooked a reasonable-sized herd as the bog beside the “stream (when we finally reached it) was churned up. Lunch on Army rations that day was more of a dream than reality, and the drop down the Ranger Stream gorge to the Poulter (again) was a nightmare as we crossed and re-crossed pools and climbed giant boulders. ‘Seven. days of crossing untracked ranges,’ rivers and skipping up open river valleys followéd:as we made our way down the Andrews, up the Hawdon, over Walker Pass, Tarn Col and Taruahuna, down the Edwards, over Williams Saddle to Goat Pass and out in gale winds and :driving rain via the Deception. An observation: the Eastern side of the Park is a good area for a quick trot but the obvious choice must still ke across the ,. * Bealey on the Main Divide. direc aes