This text was read by OCR from a scanned newsletter and has not been proofread yet, so expect odd characters and mistakes.
Alter another Friday evening spent stumbling up the track to Ohau shelter, nine punters crowded onto the sieeping platform and hit the pit. A blissful nights sleep was interrupted only by the occasional foot in the face and by the gentle sound of rain falling through the hole in the roof and onto Austin’s sieeping bag. The weather cleared right on cue and Richard, Neil and myself were soon wandering up the swollen Ohau. After a bit of a wade through the gorge we arrived at South Ohau hut. Breakfast was starting to wear otf by the time we reached the top of the Yeats 500 so we stopped for a little something to eat. After a desperate hunt through the bush Richard found a sign pointing us in the right direction and we headed down towards the head of the Otaki. On the way down we spotted the scattered remains of a weather balloon. The rain started up again just in time for lunch. By the time we climbed back up to Butcher Knob the sun was making a valiant attempt to pierce the clouds and we were treated to glimpses of Carkeek and Thompson. Dracophyllum biv looked pretly good to me by the time we got there but Neil and Richard were a little more fussy and a little less tired. After a couple of hours spent walking up and down and sometimes forwards everyone was a lot less fussy and Neil was muttering darkly about the benefits of park management with bulldozers and gelignite. We saw a lone tramper on the ridge ahead. The lone tramper turned out to be Geoff, sheltered in the lee of the ridge and looking as much a natural part of the landscape as the tussock and beech. Geofi ted us off to Nicholl's hut. The toilet at Nicholls hut isn't really a long drop it's more just a short splash. The particle board seat is slowly returning to the sawdust from which it came and small yellow fungi inhabit the darker recesses. The only thing that it really had fo recommend it was a good view down the Waiohine River, fading into the grey purple haze. Alter quick surgery on my reluctant MSR we got a meal gurgling gently in the billy. After a big plate of pasta plus’ we squabbled over the least mouldy matfress and hit the pit. it started to rain again. The next morning the waterlogged toilet had absolutely nothing to recommend it. Last night's pasta was still gurgling genily inside me as we headed up McGregor. It was windy and generally miserable on the tops. We had originally intended to press on to Maungahuka or Kime but by the time we got to Junction Knob we decided to settle for Waitewaewae. Neil's knee gave him trouble during the last part of the descent. At Waitewaewae we had lunch with Rupert the rat. Our bewhiskered colleague had strangled himself in some chicken wire and dangled, slowly mouldering, in the roof above us. In the next twenty four hours absolutely nothing of any interest happened. Neil and I set of after an early lunch on Monday morning. Geofi and Richard stayed behind to offer assistance to any shattered punters who had dropped off the tops in the worsening conditions. After a pleasant stroll through the wet bush we arrived back at the truck for the stow grind back through Labour Weekend traffic.
Bruce, Richard, Neil, Geotf.