This text was read by OCR from a scanned newsletter and has not been proofread yet, so expect odd characters and mistakes.
by Sue Walsh Renata to Otaki Forks ... that was meant to be our trip, but Mother Nature had other plans fo® us. So we set off to the wild beyonds of Waikanae to conquer Kapakapanui. At the road end, complete with a greeting party of two dogs, we enthusiastically put our packs on and set off up someone’s driveway. Quickly correcting our mistake we soon found and forded the river and watched the amusing sight of Rob and Bruce trying to cross without getting their feet wet! A cosy resting spot was found and fly’s were soon flying as we settled down for the evening, with the Mediums back a corner from us. We were up and about early(!) on Saturday although not early enough for the Mediums who went tramping through the fly’s. "Who put the track were our fly’s are?" went the cry. We decided to set off shortly after 9.00 am, well we were here to tramp, I suppose. We found the start to the track, and it went straight up! "I thought this was meant to be an Easy tramp" echoed around the hill. Up we went, quickly gaining height and fantastic views over Waikanae. With a lot of puffing and "Good grief, this has got to even out soon", we plodded on. Our designated rest time went by - Rob was in front and had forgotten to stop. When we finally caught up his excuse was " I thought there were more people up ahead". Never mind, we had a look at the map and tried to work out where we were. Bruce gave an approxiamte reading but looked a bit puzzled. On we went, the top was up ahead and we couldn’t wait to reach it. But, over the rise was the hut! We had come up the way we were supposed to go down. A very cruisy afternoon was had by all, highlighted by Rob’s (I talk about morbid things) worry he was going to collapse. We made him lie @own for a while, took his pulse (normal), then had a debate over whether he was going to survive the weekend or not. The evening meal was delicious and the rest of the evening was spent sprawled out over the benches and bunks of Kapakapanui hut. Sunday dawned late and lazy. After tidying up we left the hut to carry on to the top. After negotiating several muddy areas, we left the bush line behind us and got marvellous views all around. Lunch and photos |breceded our descent. A lot of mud patches were struck on the initial: descent and lots of curses and quiet spludges were heard. One of the vest was from Bruce who got mud up to his knees (and he’s not short!). Once into the bush, the going got easier and we did the
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Easy version of racing down hill. The bottom was greeted with joy and most people dived into the river to try and clean the mud off. Our meander back to the road-end was highlighted with Rob prancing through the water so he wouldn’t get his boots wet.
An ice-cream finished off an excellent weekend. The trampers: Bruce Pool (leader), Leanne Mellon, Rob Henry, Kathryn Grieg, Sue Walsh (scribe), Imogen Frederickson and Jill Hutson.