This text was read by OCR from a scanned newsletter and has not been proofread yet, so expect odd characters and mistakes.
by Karyn Burgess i's that time of the year when you start to discuss just whether sleeping under a fly or in a hut is the most preferable idea. Well on this occasion the Medium Trip spent Friday night encamped in the ablution block at Walls Whare! Comment for the trip; “Who's that peeing in my bedroom?” Mmmm! Just how did that Easy Trip score a tent, I'm wondering ?!?! Next morming, post porridge, six of us set out across the swing bridge (a bridge of much character and a most endearing lean to the left), to begin the ascent of the gentle slopes of Cone. Six were reduced to five when a bung knee sent Rob hitchhiking back to Wellington, but Gerard, Joe, Chris, Karyn and Wayne progressed upward. Upon reaching Cone we were surrounded by snow and ice. This provided for a magical but COLD lunch halt hour somewhere in the vicinity of where the Easy Trip were destined to spend the night. (I quess they deserved that tent afterall.) The view couldn't quite decide whether to reveal itself or not but you could just catch a glimpse if you squatted down really low and peered out from under the cloud!! Continuing down the ridge we managed to get our navigation a few degrees out (like about 180 degrees). Oh dear mel! A few ‘minor’ corrections and we were reunited with the track. What followed was a very gradual and a very long descent to Totara Flats. We carefully selected a campsite inside Totara Flats Hut - quite classy in comparison to the Walls Whare ablution block!!! A good night's sleep with some long and involved duck-shooting stories from Joe finished off the day.
When Sunday morning dawned (well two hours or so after that actually), we headed off along the river. We all had a great desire to return via Cone Saddle but upon reaching the junction, Gerard shepherded us along the river. After all we already knew what was at Cone Saddle, didn't we?
A whole three hours later there we were at Walls Yhare with two and a half hours to wait for the truck. Result) Railway stories from Chris and a combined tatoo display from Chris and Joe.