This text was read by OCR from a scanned newsletter and has not been proofread yet, so expect odd characters and mistakes.
by Struan Little
Amazing that it had never been done before! A tongue and meat trip! How many years have the old Tongue & Meats squeiched their way through Tararua bog, bent backward by Tararua wind and saturated by Tararua rain? And yet the menu was numbingly unvaried: muesli, that enforced exile from the Swiss hills: sandwiches, soggy from squashed tomato: a dinar of a grey mince stew!! Well, it all ended I in early July. vo } had done my promotion! No vegetarians! Every meal was to comprise either tongue or meat! The response to the cheerios on Wednesday night was: onthuplastic, so I knew that I was on to a popular thing. ' This ail explains why at 10.30 one Friday night I am milling around in the rain at some unpronouncable Maori-named roadend waiting for my party to don their parkas and clamber for an hour and a half up to Blue Range Hut. I began to wonder if Arete Forks was a little ambitious once we hit the snowline about an opossum - length away from the Duchess!! Daylight brought with it a picturesque scene - ‘snow over éverything with a drenching light rain doing its best to turn a foot of snow into slush, A billy full of black ‘puding raised the apis @ and we trudged off uphill, belching the remains of our breakfast of fried blood, - .
Walking in snow-covered bush is quite an experience. It no longer matters that it's raining. Mainly because there is a downpour of icy cold water as the snow melts from the trees. Occasionally, just as you trip over a hidden tree root, the tree dumps its entire load of wet snow down the back of your neck. A miserable trip! We are all relieved to reach the Ruamahanga River and get out of the snow. It's a beautiful river - not much water, easy travel, lovely scenery even if a little steep. Steep? Suddenly we realise that this is actually a side stream and we've just wasted half an hour heading back up to the tops. Time for a bit of lunch and a cold pork chop. The Ruamahanga is a scuzz-bail river - heaps of water, travel up to your waist in freezing water, no view but it is relatively flat. Soaked and exhausted, we lurch into Roaring Stag Lodge. Tongue Hash: Take several tins of tongue, boil with a few tasteless vegies, toss in some macaroni seashells and eat as fast as possible. Remain close to a door or open window for two hours or until rigor mortis sets in, whichever comes first.
Breakfast is bacon butties served before dawn as we splash our way back down river and head for Cow Creek Hut. Enroute we discover Rob Brown's party who )believe it or not) have missed the track from the hut to the saddle and bush-bashed their way up. We stroll down the track and lounge around in the rain munching more pork chops. Then it's back up the track into the snow which by Sunday has become knee-deep slush along the ridgeline and back down to the roadend. But the Fit trip is first out. Worse, we have run out of meat and have to settle for toasted cheese sandwiches, Well, what a great trip. And ! would like to thank all of you who expressed an interest, signed up and came away for a wet weekend, but with a menu truly fitting of the Club. Yes, a big thank you to Andrew McLellan, the semi-veg. And me - I've retired again!