This text was read by OCR from a scanned newsletter and has not been proofread yet, so expect odd characters and mistakes.
by Marshall Clark Our trip started on the Friday night with a "hurry up and wait" at the Railway Station, since some of the party had not heard about the plans for an early departure. Eventually, all were present and accounted for and we set off for Otaki Forks. The climb up to Field Hut started in fine, still conditions. The starlight was bright enough that torches weren’t needed until we reached the bush edge. Our arrival at Field Hut caused unavoidable disturbance to a large number already asleep, including a school group and a working party from the Tararua Club. Mercifully, the local rat population seems to have been overcome, at least temporarily, by a sustained poisoning programme. Our sleep was undisturbed by the usual scuttling and munching of rodent teeth. Some of the more enthusiastic among us rose early to see the dawn above the bushline, but mis-timed their departure, and half-froze waiting for the tardy sun to appear. Nevertheless, eventually we all rose and set off towards Kime, Hector and beyond. As we climbed up towards Kime, the cloud began to obscure some views. We met one punter coming down who had retired from the FE trip. Unfortunately, Gordon had to retire from our trip as well and went back down to Field Hut to meet Kirsty’s medium trip (bound for Penn Creek). After an early lunch at Kime, we moved onto the tops. We had an easy crossing and arrived at Alpha in mid-afternoon. We were surprised to find the FE party skulking around the hut. Also in residence was a poc staff member, who had the stove well stoked up. By tea-time there was a fair crowd in the hut and we were most grateful for the luxury of a DOC kerosene tilly lamp to assist in getting the meal ready. Some of the residents ‘had the cheek to complain about the subdued roar of Murray’s primus, but they couldn’t argue with the delights of the meal that was prepared. There were many envious eyes on our heaps of fresh vegetables. The hut was very full and some decided to sleep out on the verandah. The DOC worker had a young dog tied up on the verandah near the door and one of the punters decided that the dog would help to keep him warm overnight. Unfortunately, the dog was not fully house-trained so by morning one sleeping bag was in dire need of dry cleaning. The official route out to Kaitoke for this trip was down the Marchant ridge, but this route was scorned by most of our party. They disappeared down the Omega track, while Murray, Austin and Marshall (none of whom had been on the Marchant before) decided to find out just what all the griping was about. Your scribe can report that the Marchant is indeed long and somewhat tiresome, although there were good views from the "Burn". We arrived at the roadend carpark in good time; another Southern Crossing successfully completed. Many thanks to Murray for organising
the group: Murray Worsop, Austin, Gordon Seals, Gerrard Galvin, Jon Critchley, Hoani Issac, Jeremy Mitchell, Rob Cross and Marshall Clark.