This text was read by OCR from a scanned newsletter and has not been proofread yet, so expect odd characters and mistakes.
By Graham Morley Did you hear the one about the Englishman, the Irishman, the Greek, and the Kiwi? Well, this intemational Medium team, namely Graham, Mark, Phillip, and Richard set off one grey Saturday morning to Otaki Forks in the Super Shuttle for a “one nighter” to Penn Creek Hut. By the time we had unloaded, chatted, adjusted boots and packs, and confirmed pick-up times with the driver, it was getting on for 10 am before we started trudging up towards Field Hut. By the time we reached Field and stopped for lunch, it was time to keep a lookout for the pace setters in the annual Southern Crossing race. We left Field Hut to the promise of a batch of hot, freshly made scones for our return the next day from Sue and her Easy party. As we
at times steep descent to Penn Creek and the very comfortable and purple 8 bunk Penn Creek Hut. There was no contest for the “Blister of the Trip Award”. Mark easily won that, getting first and second prizes for blisters entitled “Right Heel” and “Left Heel”. Apparently, the trick is to wear boots that are very new. If you can get blisters like that coming downhill, just think what they will be like going back up! Dinner was a large billy of a traditional meat, potato, and vegetable stew (no vegetarians on this trip) followed by a good old desert of mixed fruit salad and cream. Then continued up from Field:to the Penn Creek turnoff, the first. runners appeared ‘out of the gloom, and then eventually we met a succession of runners in various states of health, running, walking, tripping off the tops and down to the shelter of the bushline. The weather was miserable enough on Table Top; we could only imagine what it rust have been like coming over.Hector. Ontewe had taken the tuming to Penn Creek, we had ‘the track to ourselves again and launched into along and . §
we retired to our pits to be awoken occasionally — throughout the night to the sound of the rain gently lashing against the roof.
On Sunday, the blisters were bound and we reluctantly stepped out into the rain to retum back up the hill) Any hopes of “spending some time on the tops to take in the views” were quickly forgotten as the rain got heavier and heavier. About a third of the way up, Mark finally gave in to the blisters and swapped his new boots for a pair WTA&MC APRIL 1995 of faithful Teva sandals and looked significantly more comfortable from then on. Thoughts of the comforts of Field Hut and the promised scones drove us on.
Soaked and hungry, we arrived at Field Hut. Where were the scones? Not evena stale smell of cooking. So it was just bread and cheese for lunch. It was at this point that the idea for Tramper’s Disposable Nappies was raised. The thought of being able to rip off (and carry out, of course) a soaking nappy and replace it with a dry, soft, Snuggler was certainly appealing.
We arrived back at the Forks in plenty of time to catch the Super Shuttle. The Easy party showed no concern at how gutted we'd been to find no scones waiting for us. The Fit trip arrived back on time and we were all ready to go home, knowing that we would be back in good time for baths/showers, tea and Models Inc. However, no Super Shuttle. After half an hour waiting, a call was made to Super Shuttle who explained that there had been some confusion and that this had never happened before. An hour later our Shuttle arrived and we were off.
The following trip report was written by one of the youngest punters to ever write a trip up. This should be an inspiration to all you adult punters who find great difficulty getting paper and pen to connect. Read on...