This text was read by OCR from a scanned newsletter and has not been proofread yet, so expect odd characters and mistakes.
HAURANGIS — 10 - 12 DECEMBER 1993 by ROBYNE GARDNER The Friday night “end of the road” was just past Ngawi. Past rows of fishing trawlers and tractors that loomed out of the gloom as we rumbled by. We tumbled from the cheery truck interior onto the beach and were abandoned to assemble our pits by torchlight. After a bit of stumbling about, we all settled down to contemplate the clear sky, complete with shooting stars, to the roar of the breakers and passing revellers. Bright sunshine revealed that we had pitted beneath the gaze of a nearby abode. Harry loped around snapping those still slumbering. It is amazing what you can do in your sleeping bag; some just ate breakfast while others sprang forth fully packed up from theirs. The day’s tramping began innocuously enough for us Easy/Mediums, the Fits having already been spotted making a quick getaway from their pits some couple of hundred metres up the valley. We too were shortly squelching off up the river into the hot sunshine. Soon we were in the bush and some new bods were solemnly introduced to stinging nettle, at a safe distance of course. Our path was leading us up and along and up and along when suddenly mayhem erupted with a capital “B” Bees!! The little black sort that get stuck in your hair (if you have enough), and furiously go “zzzizzz!l!” With nowhere to go along the narrow track except on or back, we lurched forward, arms and legs madly slapping and flapping to the ringing sounds of crazed bees and cussing trampers. Only two lucky souls were later revealed to have escaped the stinging avengers while Ferrida, the initial intruder, copped it more than most. Don meanwhile, had wheeled the rearguard away, avoiding the melee altogether and, scrambling up a vaguely steepish bit, they rejoined the ranks ahead. After that episode, some more up and alongs and a couple of welcome downs, a leafy lunch stop was declared where the track crossed a stream at the bottom of a valley. We continued walking with the glaring heat off the river boulders being relieved only by the frequent splashings from Don, Wayne, Zar and Co. as they capered about, hurling rocks at one another into the drink. We had followed the river down into a grassy valley bordered on the right by nettley bush. It was decided not to camp a little farther down by Kawkawa Hut because of the unsavoury odours emanating from nearby. The rest of the afternoon was spent in lolling relaxation; a few just flopped, while others sipped tea by, or in the stream, as drying socks bobbed about festooned over nearby bushes. Very civilised. Dinner too, was brill; beef stroganoff followed by cheesecake and mostly fresh fruit salad, complete with seeded _ grapes a la Ferrida. Talk around the dusk campfire got on to the fate of humans at the hand of nature that day, at which point John leaped up and vengefully ripped an entire nettle bush out by the roots and flung it, still alive, onto the flames, whence we all cackled mercilessly as its leaves shrivelled. Nature - 14. Humans - 1. Another peaceful night was spent under the stars, or flies, to accompanying night noises of brook and morepork. Sunday dawned fine and warm. Underway early by quarter past ten, we followed the water down its rocky
course towards the sea. The walk was flat and pleasant, the only occurrence of note being the odd aquatic — ambush and surprising a farming couple by walking out through their front garden. The trolls amongst us lunched under a nearby bridge while others radiated on the bank. Post-lunch walking began beside the surf before degenerating into an “into-a-headwind-dusty-road-slog”. Not having gone as far as planned on Saturday, we had to walk along the coast to our originally planned pick-up point. Arriving early, the wait was punctuated only by Ferrida’s midstream dunking after failing to observe truce terms. Finally the Fits strode into view just moments before the Duchess arrived to carry us happily back to the land of ice-cream.