This text was read by OCR from a scanned newsletter and has not been proofread yet, so expect odd characters and mistakes.
‘First there were 13 of us, spread around van, car, hut ro floor and flies, on a rainy Friday night. By Saturday morning 2 had defected.to the medium trip, leaving 11 of .us to grovel along the track towards Burn Hut. Meg wanting a less crowded ride home, pushed Mike down the bank into Rob. Rob escaped a shade or two paler, but Mike gashed his knee, requiring stitches. Lindsay and Ross escorted him to Palmerston North, and then there were. .. 8... An early lunch and brew at Burn Hut after struggling up hill, through vast amounts of mud, and being buffeted by high winds.. We ventured up the hill into the dreaded leatherwood, staggering drunkenly in the wind, and grovelling through the increasingly dense foliage. The aifferent grovelling styles provided good entertainment, It was: only the males. who ever actually lay down to grovel. After a couple of hours of increasing wind and decreasing ‘visibility, a concensus was taken, and the hut returned.to. I Wood was cut, the (smoky) stove was lit and dinner was put -: S4,on, just as Lindsay and Ross rejoined us, bringing numbers back up to 10. After dinner we ali ran round outside the hut, doing a sun dance with sparklers. ‘ve must have = goofed - it rained most of that night and Sunday, as we walked back out. We decided that it had been such an impressive grovel, that we would all return to try and = complete the trip. 7 oNs On the trip: Lindsay & Sue Cuthbertson, Sue Charles, Ross. Woods, Peter Thorne, Gregory Ord, _ on ae Annette Johnson (Scribe), Dale Parsons, Meg Rodden, Mike Moran, Rob Whitla (Barry). ;