This text was read by OCR from a scanned newsletter and has not been proofread yet, so expect odd characters and mistakes.
The long and tedious trip to the roadend was broken by a long and hard-fought game of Happy Families, I am sure there was some cheating going on! Oh, by the way Ilse, Happy Families is a card game! The first day was very predictable, an easy climb up the hill on the way to Park's Peak Hut. Most of the punters on the trip were rearing to go but Bogan insisted on stopping and admiring the view all the time and for the whole weekend! Lunch was had at Park's Peak Hut, a cold lunch in more than one way, then it was the descent to Upper Makaroro Hut, where yours truly just happened to step on a loose branch in the middle of a dry track and in the next instance, a blood curdling cry was suddenly heard ringing about the hills. To the dismay of the other punters, the leader had gone down, what would they do! I must admit fora split second the thought of being helicoptered out flashed through my mind.
Speaking of helicopters, our first night out under the flies was a wet and wild one, so wild in fact that one of my punters who shall remain nameless (Wayne Stevens) woke most of us up by sitting up and shouting “let me out of this helicopter’. He then woke up, rubbed his eyes and muttered something about what a terrible dream he had just had. The second day was as predictable as the first, the consolation was that the views were a whole lot better from the tops. Then finally we were heading down to Barlow Hut, where we met up with the really easy group. Have a hard tramp guys! ! ! After muchwitty banter with some of the really really easy group, i.e. Morris and Ferrida, and with some of the Medium group, especially one Dor Goodhue, about the merits of the Coleman stove over the MSR, it was décided to Rave a boil-off.
The next moming, Boil-Off time, gas stoves primed and ready to go, MSR half a billy full of water, Coleman a whole billy of water, and guess which stove won, the Coleman of course, won by a whole 30 seconds, believe it or not.
All in all a great trip. I won't mention all the punters because they know who they are.
Scribe: "Woody".