This text was read by OCR from a scanned newsletter and has not been proofread yet, so expect odd characters and mistakes.
“Well, the weekend got off to a fairly uncertain start on Friday night as the bus driver informed us he wasn't going all the way up to.the car park by the Blyth Hut track but was going to drop us down at Maungawhero, which he duly did. So in the rain, with many mutterings about the absentee transport officer and what he -could do with the new bus, we pitched our tents and pitted down for the night. Some of the lads braved the rain for long enough to walk up the roac.a wee way and sleep in some ‘shelters' (bogs:). I don't think the concrete floor and 10 minute-ly "waterfall" was much of an improvement, At 2 a.m. the transport officer managed to sneak in, luckily for him, unnoticed! In the morning it was decided we had three options - stay put, goback to the pub, or go on up. It was wet where we were, and the - pub soundsé expensive,.so‘all bar one we set off. After a few “minutes a landrover stopped: and took ell the packs along with most of us. Some of us were masochistic enough to walk 9km (I actually enjoyed it), but when the same landrover came back and offered the: last of us a ride for the Tast 3-4km, how could we refuse such generosity. About 12 noon the tailenders got to Blyth Hut, bi which time a fire was going and wet gear was dripping ary. I After some lunch we managed to go out and brave the blizzard for some instruction, and by sunset we could see the odd patch of sunshine and blue sky, and a few glimpses eo Egmont... . yt i: eal Breakfast time was starry, clear and beautiful, and a really nice day followed. We split up, two pupils to an instructor, and went away-to "do our thing". . The snow was a bit soft and crusty but I the instructors found some good slopes to make us go up and down. While we stopped for lunch some of the 'gun climbers’ found a frozen waterfall te try aid climb, and seemed to enjoy it. The whole day was a rea]. cracsxer and made the wet tents well worthwhile. By 4 o'clock we al., managed te be down at the Park Ranger's head-: quarters where a ré‘cher Yrang-over bus driver (sérves him bloody well right!) came «nd picked us up. We stopped at Taihape for fish'n'chips becausse we thought so many shops to spread ourselves around might speed service up. Three quarters of an hour later we changed our minds: :
As we got into Wellington the general feeling was that a good time had been had by all (except the trip leader who spent Saturday night and Sunday 'dying' with 'flu). Everyone who wanted to learn something did, and man: thanks go to the instructors for their time and effort.