This text was read by OCR from a scanned newsletter and has not been proofread yet, so expect odd characters and mistakes.
A van struggled slowly up a long and winding road; °’" rolled to a stop and nine trampers fell into the — darkness and threw up a campsite (anyone who has . tried this will tel] you it is very painful}; Morning broke as the trampers from Murray Worsop's medium trip slowly crawled from their pits, packed, and: plodded slowly along the Mangahao Dam.
Four of the nine - Struan Little, Patric Lane, Don Purnell and Sam Raphael - cunningly rejected Murray’ So conservative valley plodding (at least we missed the leatherwood.- Ed) and swung gracefully. skywards up a nearby track onto the tops. Bursting from — the bush they were struck by awe; to the north, Ruapehu, Taranaki, coasts on either side; to the” south, the South Island (surprise, surprise! )
Our valiant heroes fought bravely along the narrowing track for a while, until a small knob was sighted’ ° “I but five minutes yonder. Upon arrival, quarter - wy of an hour later, they all sat down and ate Straun's lunch, During this. feast a decision was made to fall into Harris Creek rather than risk life and limb on a direct route to Harris Creek Hut.
Leatherwood was encountered during the descent, at intervals of up to a foot. Harris Creek was a Pleasant trickle, though one member did wash himself of the day's grime in a very shallow pool (We won't mention any names will we Sam! - Ed}. They rejoined Murray's mob at the hut. A good night‘s sleep was had after an interesting meal of rice and tuna.
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The following day their small group gained three new members (what .feols!) for a jaunt through the gorge back to the van - Mike Rake, ‘Heather Spence and Ken Aiken - though they did Lose Don to the track “followers, because he didn't want wet feet. The gorge was easy enough except for continuous submarine impersonations in the deeper pools... What a weekend; great weather, great company and great food. tI bet you wish you had gone}