This text was read by OCR from a scanned newsletter and has not been proofread yet, so expect odd characters and mistakes.
‘The most cunning plan is hatched.......... Le Commitment is made, information sought, maps acquired, plans drawn up, gear organised and contracts Signed - and finally I had trapped the players into a wild ride to oblivion and ecstasy. Well, in reality, the only thing we had in common with the four horsemen was the number of us. (Although Alan Mc did think he was going to meet one of them at one stage - ail will be revealed.....) So we set off on Friday under rapidly improving weather conditions (Penelope Barr owed me a favour) and, after severely dealing to the Fits on the 500 front, we eventually pulled up at the roadend. Being keen blokes, we bid. farewell to the Easy's and set off into the warm night. (Unusual for Mediums, I here you say?). A short walk, a geographical embarrassment and a strange bull that seemed very interested in Steve later, and we are on the track to Ohau Shelter. The track is boggy, the night is dark and Alan Mc's torch just cashed in its chips. The track sidles across a steep bank and we follow it - well, Steve, Allan R and I follow it, Alan Mc decides he's got better things to do. I watch him step off the edge, lose his balance and accelerate down into the blackness accompanied by the crack and snap of solid timber (or bone), lots of shouting and my hat and favourite badge! "Alan - are you OK?" - no answer. The leader's first crisis - it looked bad, near vertical drop - maybe 200 feet with a possible free-fall section just out of sight. My God we're dealing with the Tararua’s answer to the Kangshung Face here!! At last Alan shouts back “I'm OK". We're finally all sitting back on the track. Alan's shaken but OK, Allan R is relieved and my hat's still missing. Five minutes down the track and we see Ohau Shelter, ignore it, and sleep behind it under the fly. Saturday morning breaks with style, a lot of sun, breakfast and a brew. The others pack up while I wander back to salvage my hat. Talk about damage - it looks more like a semitruck and trailer unit went over the bank, DOC is going to spew about this one. Alan's party trick left skid marks, broken off trees and rubble all down the bank. Lucky my hat's still there - but what a mess! As it turns out, the sunlight makes the scene shrink to a more realistic 30 foot slide with no free-fall! The rest of Saturday is a bog-slog up Gable End Ridge. Excellent views of Levin and the coast but hard work. Lunch at Richard's Knob and then on across Butcher Saddle and up to Te Matawai Hut. The hut is excellent. Reasonably modern, clean, heaps of room and fresh rain water. Sleeps about 18 comfortably, 50 million at a pinch - fortunately we were the only group there. (The Fits had charged through at 1.30pm on their way to Arete and Dracophyllum Biv). We unpacked, brewed up and after soaking up the last of the sun, fired up the cookers and got dinner underway. Mushies, roadkill stew and veges with chocolate mint biscuits and a brew to wash it down and I was knackered - (and they complained about no pudding!) Sunday dawns with extreme awesomeness. Crystal clear and sunny as a Playschool beach scene. We breakfast.under the snow-capped peaks which make up one of the Tararua's spines. It's 9.30am and time to move out, down Yeates. Track to South Ohau Hut, where we join the river as it speeds down towards the sea. This is a most excellent river bash through some knarly gorges all the way down to where the North Ohau River joins from the true right. At this Point a track leaves the river and sidles around above it back to Onau Shelter. From Ohau Sheiter it's a short burst back to the farmland, we stop only to laugh at “Alan's fall scene". Across the farm and a quick march down the road to the truck, and it's all over. All things considered it was a most excellent trip, well worth doing if you haven't been up that way before. Just remember the basic principles of gravity and you won't have any trouble. Thanks to Steve, Alan Mc and Allan R for a most non-bogus journey.
DAMIAN
A medium trip (or should I say, a medium trips?!?) Ohau - Te Matawai 16 - 18 October 1992.