This text was read by OCR from a scanned newsletter and has not been proofread yet, so expect odd characters and mistakes.
"Le Excursion? C'est le Vivé! C'est Magnifique:" _ (The trip? It is:the life! It is magnificent) The ferry trip over on Thursday night was averagely bouncy, but everyone ‘managed to hold on'to their ‘Curry! n! Rice... The pre-booked . -superdooper computer link up controlled ‘avis van was not waiting.for us at Picton, so we were delayed for a ‘time while Ian Q:S rang the Avis manager and got him to try harder. We eventually got the van and Ian provided us with an above average bouncy trip to St Arnaud in which we picked up most of the ime we had lost in Picton and nearly picked up two innocent cows, several ” road signs and a prestressed concrete bridge. I We arrived at 1.00am and .picniced!' in the ‘picnic shelter‘ overnight. ° Ce bene pelle ete ae The boat arrived early in the morning and we started: ‘walking from’ Uakehead just after eight. Running, actually. We lunched at John Tait in the hot sun and cold rain then sprinted up the gentle gradient to Cuppola Hut which had 8 bunks for the 8 of us. (Tasty, tasty, very very tasty - Dave). We hit the Pit for the avo' and spent. the next’ day in the sack just for good measure... Mark proved to:be the expert in Pit~Bashing, showing every body. up. with. his capacity for total commitment to a serious day's inactiv-
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ity. Ian Q.S, Rex and I proved that people who wear’ gumboots are éxcept-+ ionally rugged and,manly, by going for a walk up the Travers in brilliant scuba diving conditions. I nearly convinced myself later that I had enjoyed the cold wet grovel. Dave piked at the last minute with the: rather lame é@xcusé that if this was a tramping trip he would go, but it was a climbing trip and on climbing trips’ you don't do anything in bad weather. Andrew partially retrieved his’ newly lost "give-anything-a-bash" image by - putting on his full climbing gear and hiding behind the Hut for a few hours oe preteriding I he:was ‘taking a look up Cuppola way.'! ; It: snowed overnight . The kea which. had been. keeping us - company was still sitting on a rock outside’ the Hut looking wet, bedraggled and quite p....d off. . That kea will never know how close it came to being a‘kea burger when Ian W. ran. out of Moros. The weather Looked about as promising ag a Hopeless. "what's the rush, we've got all day. Let's do it tomorrow," said Dave enthusiastically as we set off. It looked steep. "Don't worry about it up there" said Mark, "A little fall goes a long way." The weather crapped out.in a big way: as soon as we got involved in it. -- Wé split ‘into two groups of 4 on the ridge, one group to try the ridge, the ‘other back- -tracking to try the Couloir. Leo, Ian Q.S., Rex and I spent ‘several fruitful hours down a waist) deep mega-steep soft snow chute before deciding we were bluffed, so we made our way back up to the ridge and head- ‘ed back.to the Hut. Ian tryed to light’ the stove the quick ‘way that afternoon. "Don't worry. Ian," said Leo, “Kero: doesn't-"WHOOMPH went thé Kero which had evaporated on the stove. Ian scraped the singed hairs off his formidable arms, smoothed his smouldering shirt over the broad ridges of muscle on his ‘stomach, dreamed vaguely of a red-headed woman who was lightly tanned and had a full, sensuous mouth, then finally got the stove going. . The others turned up. It snowed.to- fairly low levels overnight. We packed up and left at 8.30am. Very. tasty looking waterfalls going down to the Travers, and beautiful snow scenes in the -bush. . Great bog at Cuppola by the way. It was superb sitting there looking across the valley: cold, wet snow calmly falling on the trees; cold, wet snow calmly drifting in your face, and down your trousers and in your boots and wetting your toilet paper. But the view was triffie from that bog f*sure. We. crawled down the valley in strong sunshine, then: a snow storm for. awhile, and finally lunched at Coldwater, Hut where it was sunny and> pleasant. Quite tasty as Dave put it. Ian Q.S, Andrew and I left a pit early to Pick up the van from St Arnaud, as we were walking out the west ael3 side of the lake. We all went to Picton, stopping only to “cut. some *@*i! of £" at Blenheim, and slowing down briefly to decide whether to pick up two hitch-hikers ~ thankfully not on the front bumper this time. at The trip back to Wellington‘the Arahura was extra-above-averagely-bouncy. To be frank, though, no one chundered which was a bonus. All in all, this was a good trip. You should have been on it. This was a very good trip. You should have been very on it. Who went: Mark Neeson, Dave Humm, Tan Quantity Surveyor, Rex Benbrook, Andrew Denley, Leo Homes, Ian Wightwick, Dan Underwood wrote this.