This text was read by OCR from a scanned newsletter and has not been proofread yet, so expect odd characters and mistakes.
By Don Goodhue I
Another Friday night and here we were - heading out of town for another weekend in the hills. This time though, we were travelling in style. Since only the Fit trip was running (eight crazy souls), we had piled ourselves into a shuttle van for the trip to the Pines roadend.
We quickly came to our senses though, as we were deposited in the darkness and headed off up the valley towards Mitre Flats. The walk was more of a stumble than a tramp - over rocks and tree roots, with the occasional stop to adjust torches and count bodies.
Somewhere in the darkness we encountered a group of Hutt Valleys, also on their way into Mitre Flats. Eventually the track dropped down to the river and it wasn’t long before we were ensconced in our pits in Mitre Flats Hut. There was only one other body present when we arrived, as the Hutt Valleys were still out in the bush somewhere.
Saturday moming and we decided to spilt into two groups of four to take different routes to Tam Ridge. Gerard, Peggy, Daniel, and Edward were to attack via
Mitre. Chris, Don, Eric, and Peter were to bring up the rearguard via Baldy and the Kings. The Baldy team headed off soon after 8:00 am, noses to the grindstone for the grunt up to Baldy. As we went further up the Barton Track it became obvious that there hadn’t been anyone else this way for some time. Fortunately though, someone had cleared the last stretch of the track to the bushline at some stage, thereby saving us a grovel. Above the bushline, we could see across to Jumbo Hut, but up ahead the route disappeared into the murk. We continued on upwards and stopped inside a cloud for lunch on South King. Lunch was brief and then we were on our way again, with the occasional glimpse of Mitre off to the right, and Dorset Ridge to the left. As we hauled ourselves up onto Girdlestone, we spotted a group descending towards Tarn Ridge, later turned out to be the Hutt Valleys who had attacked via Mitre. On the last stretch to Tarn Ridge we passed the other half of the team who were heading down to Dorset Ridge for a look.
Dinner was an interesting affair, with some of the other occupants of the hut marvelling at what we considered to be standard Tongue & Meat’s fare. After dinner we settled into a session with the Hutt Valleys, swapping yarns and comparing notes. After a night of serious sleeping and snoring, all bodies were up early to witness a beautiful day. We all ended up leaving the hut together and gathered on Girdlestone to admire the view - to the north Mt. Ruapehu, Mt. Taranaki, and the Ruahines, to the south the Inland Kaikouras. We finally parted company with the Hutt Valleys and headed off down Table Ridge. (They were heading for Mitre Flats via Mid King).
We took our time down Table Ridge, stopping to admire the views and take the occasional photo. Once I back into the bush, it was once again obvious that there ” had not been anyone else this way for some time. It didn’t matter though as the going was easy, through mostly open bush.
If you haven't been down Table Ridge to Cow Creek - Beware! The track does a bit of a jink to the left about a third of the way down. You see, our illustrious leader felt inclined to stop for the call of the wild. Some of the others, noticing the jink and the fact that Chris had dropped behind, decided to mark the track with a rather large arrow on the ground, pointing to which side of the jink we had gone. Unfortunately, by the time Chris had gained steam again, he was looking straight ahead and not at the ground (where the arrow was). Knowing Chris to be the capable type in the bush, and expecting that he was a scenic detour, the rest of us went on ahead to the river for lunch, deciding that would be a nicer spot, should we have to wait for him. He eventually turned up in time for lunch. After messing around on Girdlestone and Table Ridge, time was creeping up on us and we had an appointment with a taxi somewhere over the next hill.
The last stretch to Kiriwhakapapa was uneventful - a long grind up from the river so soon after lunch got a good sweat up. We dropped down to the road, arriving about ten minutes before the taxi.
Feeling pleased to have arrived on time and somewhat smellier than Friday night, we piled into the shuttle and looked forward to an ice cream in Featherston. It had been a great weekend in the hills.