This text was read by OCR from a scanned newsletter and has not been proofread yet, so expect odd characters and mistakes.
A tragic tale but one not entirely unexpected. There, on the trip list, was my name down to jead an FE. Southern Main Range it said. And already some self-centred person had put their name down. A brief conversation later and I knew that the chances of my corpulent, unfit self wading through snow on the Tararua tops for ridiculous numbers of hours was simply not an option. The solution was to amalgamate with Roger Bolam's fit trip for which only he had been foolhardy enough to sign up. So three hardy souls, Roger, Andrew and myself, stood at Otaki Forks on Friday night determined to revenge ourselves on the Field Hut rats and wake them up in the middle of the night for a change. As we progressed uphill, I heroically elected to take a position at the back, although I would never have guessed that this would mean lying flat on my back gasping for breath. I was very thankful that I had convinced Andrew to adopt an easier option for the weekend. Tramping Saturday morning was fortunately somewhat cooler. Rain, wind, sieet and fog tends to be cooler. Basically a perfect Tararua day. After an hour and a half of seeing nothing but our parka hoods, we abandoned our intentions of heading over the Tararua Peaks and headed for the luxury and serenity of Kime Hut. Any pretence of serenity was soon shattered by the arrival of Sam's rabbie, But not their erstwhile leader himself. Had alt that soft living finally got to him or was he in dire need? A rescue party was soon dispatched into the mist. Roger and myset set off, with Roger managing to convince me that only I needed a pack, and that his gear would fit neatly into it. Using our combined experience and navigational skilts we followed marker poles until Sam's voice alerled us to the fact that we had wandered off the track. A successful rescue 100 metres from the hut was effected with a certain amount of contusion as to who had rescued who. Then it became a serious session of pitbashing enlivened only by Doug's jokes. It would be fair to say that they were somewhat simple jokes, So it was with some amusement that the rest of the team was forced to explain the punchlines to Roger. This forced Daniel and James to put their heads in their hands and disappear into.an adjoining room for several hours. Even I could stand the jokes in preference to the cold, but I guess youth always overdo everything. The weather on Sunday was a little disappointing, with the rain easing. The jokes were just as bad but now they were repeats. I screamed. Daniel decided Johnny's gumboots were dirty and plodded off through the. snow to wash them in the frozen tarn. I think the Club should buy Doug a joke book. We could see a possible improvement in the weather and so immediately sprinted back to the safety and shade of the Duchess. Sure enough, it was a fine and sunny day back in Wellington. So it was time to dry out my gear and wait for the next bout of disgusting weather and maybe a week- long FE to Fiordland.
Punters: Roger Bolam, Andrew Keall, Struan Little.