This text was read by OCR from a scanned newsletter and has not been proofread yet, so expect odd characters and mistakes.
Once upon a time there was is a gentleman in the Ciub who is semi retired, with whom I was having discussions about midweek tramping, what a dream! Well being the management, workforce, teaboy and the cleaner, I decided to take a well deserved break from management. So I phoned up the S.R. gent and by 2.15pm we left Kiwi Ranch. in the meantime us workers got a whilt of what was going’on, so I organised a stopwork meeting, then we went on strike. Not liking the smell of tea off I went up the Tauherenikau for dinner, a good brew of coffee and a good nights kip. That night the skies were clear, bright stars shining and the air crisp. The morning was lazy as we arose to clear skies, light frost, etc. After breakfast of porridge, bacon & eggs and good coffee with biscuits, we broke camp about 9.00am. Up the Tkau to Cone hut. This hut is a credil to all who have been involved in the restoration of this historic place. Go and see for yourselves as I may waffle on about this place. On the way up lo Cone we sampled the stream water, chocolate, lollies, biscuits, etc. We arrived on Cone for lunch. While waiting for the billy to boil my friend Brian kept. making a comment of how guilty he feit about ail you people working or stuck home with the flu. As you all know there is a cure for this. It goes like this - stand jooking towards Wellington, put your thumb on your nose, wiggle your fingers and shout "Suckers" as loud as you can. What a great relief heh Brian. Great views from here on a snow covered Cone, and with clear skies we could see the Main range, Mt. Holdsworth, Winchcomhbe ridge, the Southem and Bull Mound, all covered in snow, all majestical. My feet are cooling off says rian, where do we go now, pointing out that he needs to be back for ski bookings on Thursday. So down Block XIX up onto Buil Mound in search of a campsite. After a shori search in the alpine bush we found a small clump of trees in a clearing on top of Bull Mound. Scraped a bit of snow away to pitch the tent and camp was struck in time to watch the sun set behind Hector. Another great dinner and all the guitt removed. To watch the sun rise from the pit is a great way to start a Thursday. A couple of grins stayed