This text was read by OCR from a scanned newsletter and has not been proofread yet, so expect odd characters and mistakes.
Another Friday night standing outside the Railway Station. In between chatting up the trains we threw packs into cars. It's obvious where we're going - the sky is clear with stars sprinkled between the streetlights. We are not going to the Tararuas. Mo, it's fine weather, 60 we're off to celebrate Liz's birthday in the Kawekas. Liz unfortunately couldn't make it as she was tied up at Buckingham Palace, but 9 of us managed admirably without her. Eric had a superb time rally driving around the back country Hawkes Bay roads. So much sO that he squealed around one corner and disappeared below headlight level iato a ford. Noone was worried when he stalled mid-stream until the water rushing through the doors provided wet feet. So he did the only honourable thing: hurried through, stopped, got. out and laughed at all the other cars wallowing around in the ford. Fine and frosty weather sent people huddiing lower in their sleeping bags and the FE’s valiantly got away five minutes before the Easy trip. About this point Struan discovers that he has left his shorts behind, and with the only option of exposing his short behind, walks on in longjohns. The Mediums struggle to Middle Hill and collapse exhausted after a tough two hours. Struan collapses with heat exhaustion. Mere minutes later he is breaking new frontiers of fashion by cutting off the legs of his longjohns and replacing them at night with safety pins. But for the lack of safety pins everyone else would have joined in this superbly innovative idea. Do it now for your next tramp. Join the leading edge of outdoor fashion. An afternoon walk to the tops was abandoned by the women on the trip, largely on the basis they had to go home and cook tea. Well, what do you expect in this day and age? In their defence allow me to say that Margaret's Caribbean Chicken was a cut above the ever popular muesli and soybean stew.
Another six degrees frost later and we're on our way to Te Puia hot springs. Well most of us are. Anita, Victoria and Lindsay think it will be a really bright idea to bushbash down a scrubby, bluffy spur. And of course these things are only done for fun when you end up doing them in the dark. Meanwhile the more sensible members of the party have cruised down the track and are soaking their bloated bellies in a hot bath. The morning is relatively uneventful except for normal activities such as Bruce putting his boots on in the bath and some guy called Spotty wearing a pair of frozen underpants
on his head. From here it was a race back to the cars, taking shortcuts where possible. Some shortcuts proved to be possible, but not so short.
Hopping into the cars was easy, but starting frozen cars wasn't. Engines were frozen solid. Eric lost his frost plugs but that great white hunter Geoff "Give Me Another Hill* Crockford soon fashioned one out of a manuka tree. Very nice too, until Darrell found the original plug. And so it was off back to Wellington for all. But not for Lindsay's car which stopped dead five miles down the road. However, ever resourceful the team hitched to Hastings, taxied to Napier and drove a hired car to Wellington, all in time to get Margaret to work by eleven that night.