This text was read by OCR from a scanned newsletter and has not been proofread yet, so expect odd characters and mistakes.
LABOUR WEEKEND 1994
The Wednesday night before the trip there were a few minor acjustments to the trip list... (one dropout and four new volunteers). After figuring out whether or not we now had enough gear, I thought I had it all sussed.
WRONG!
There weren’t enough people to make it worthwhile running the truck... Hmmm... Who's gota car? Friday night saw us all downat the Railway Station. Yes, thirteen people do fit into three cars .. . JUST!
We made our way to Dawson Falls, Jonathon being careful to make sure he was noticed by the speed camera north of Bulls, (Smile for the little birdie ... Click!) Most of us found a space on the floor in the shelter by the car park. Harry and Bill wandered off in search of a tree to snooze under.
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By Brian Ellis
The weather on Saturday moming was nothing short of amazing for along weekend at Egmont - PERFECT! We made our way up and around the mountain to the skifield, where we were disappointed by the lack of snow and ski bunnies to annoy.
Aniving at Holly Hut mid-afternoon, Harry, Greg, and a few others decided that they would rather keep walking than lie inthe sun, so they went off for a look at Bells Falls. On the way back, Greg decided that the stream was looking REALLY inviting and went for a quick swim courtesy of a slippery rock. Harry leapt to record the moment for posterity (and character assassination), only to find that he had run out of film! Disappointed? Yep!
Sunday moming was much the same as Saturday, also perfect. Unable to believe our luck, we set off to continue the circumnavigation, while Harry went to look at the swamp. Three punters decided that they would like a look at the waterfall - by failing to notice the track leading off to the left about 10 minutes from the hut. Jonathon and I caught up with the leading group and realised that we were a few trampers short of a horde. “Where are they?”. “I dunno - must have kept going straight ahead at the track junction’. Dave was feeling keen and suffering from excess energy and ran off to try and find the missing sheep. The rest of us settled down for a serious snooze in the sun. Some time later the missing wanderers put in an appearance.
We stopped for lunch and alie-around in the sun at Kahui Hut. Lunch was a leisurely affair, and we gave it a full chance to settle before doing anything rash - like tramping. As we were packing up, Harry mentioned that it’s far too nice to go anywhere and promised to catch us up later - before returning to the serious job of sleeping in the sun.
The aftemoon is notable only for the amount of mud encountered - and people’s attempts to avoid it, not always successfully. Another delicious meal was prepared by the few, while the many found other ways to occupy their time. Harry commented that if the weather is good he would like to go up to Rangitoto Flat tomorrow ... “Tomorrow's dawn revealed high cloud, and the decision was made to retum to Dawson Falls via the upper track. The moming was spent making our way up the ridge, eventually stopping for lunch within sight of a feature that had drawn comment all weekend - “Bob’s Knob”,
As soon as we sat down to eat, the clouds that had been hanging around all day decided to remind us of their presence. The shower of rain passed as quickly as it arrived. The gods must have heard Harry’s comment about going up to Rangitoto Flat if the weather is good ... AS we were having lunch, the clouds closed in and reduced visibility to “where’s the next pole?” In the absence of anything interesting to look at, we amused ourselves by playing around in the snow - some of the punters getting their first experience of plugging steps. We arrived at the wooden stairway leading up (and down) Fanthams Peak. Harry decided he was keen to get back to the car park and took off ahead with Dave in quick pursuit. We arrived at the car park to discover that Dave had put the billy on, and it had almost boiled, There were a few dirty words as he realised that the primus was going to run out of fuel first.
Prakash discovered that he had a wee problem with his car -flat battery. Jumper cables and Fiona’s car sorted out that small problem, and we made our way home via the first dairy we found for a coke and ice cream fix.
The mountain circumnavigators were: Brian (Trip Leader), Lisa, Natasha, Jonathon, Fiona, Dave, David, Prakash, Kate, Bill Andrew, Greg, and Harry.