This text was read by OCR from a scanned newsletter and has not been proofread yet, so expect odd characters and mistakes.
The -bus: dropped: usxat the Cloustonvilte’ road=end, on a ‘cold and. wet Friday. night. No*sense in hanging around’ so’ we were soon making tracks for _ Renata hut where we intended to spend the night.
The trip was originally scheduled to head over. Renata, drop into the upper. Tauherenikau, and then climb-otit:on Beehive Spur,*and thence down Tregear Spur to Ctaki Forks. However we decided to change this somewhat,. planning to join the work: party at Smith Creek to assist°in carrying aut concrete mixers, generators, etc. oy: ees yy tien Bia t, oeatictiine ‘ ; Francis Stream was up, as we: wanton our ‘way up by torchlight. .The current I was swift,iso one could-hardly-say-that it was in anyway boring! . Event= ; ually we reached the Forks-in the ‘upper reaches' of the Francis where the track up to Renata is supposed.to. be.. After crashing around in the ° undergrowth for about half-an-hour looking for the track, we decided to *° call it a night and pitched the fly,on a small ledge above the stream, Saturday ° morning dawned and after finding the track we headed up to Renata hut. A long grind followed, , ee ‘the ridge, over Renata and onto © Elder.,i*where. we: had lunch.
We made Aston in good time, hearing voices of, another party in the mist but not seeing them. Over Alphe and back.down into the bush, ‘to the new Alpha hut. After a. brief stop there we dropped down into Hells Gate and then climbed out onto the Marchant. After a tiring grovel down the Omega track we hit the Tauherenikau, just above Tutuwai. As it was about. 6. 30pm, we decided to pitch the - fly on a. river Flat. Everyone dropped off to sleep. quickly after tea.: . Sunday was bright and fine, an@ we lay around in our pits until 9.00am, except for Mike: who was up at what seemed like day break. After breakfast we Geparted, down the river to arrive at Smith Creek about.an hour later. Alas, Marty's hopes of pushing out concreté mixers and/or carrying generators were cruelly dashed when a chopper came in to pick them up all that now remained was a somewhat anti-climax walk out to the roadend, the end of an imtéresting and enjoyable weekend. Those on the trip were: ; Martin Green (leader), Mike Kennelly, Grant Fillyer, Peter Hodge.