This text was read by OCR from a scanned newsletter and has not been proofread yet, so expect odd characters and mistakes.
aturday morning was brilliant - Clear blue sky and a white, white mountain. Four of us (Greg, David, Christine and |) were heading down
We headed off along the main track stopping to shed layers and admire iced up puddles. The odd photo stop was compulsory until I realised I only
By Sue Walsh tain in between cloud, and looked at the ice forming on the edge of the stream, and on the rocks and boulders. Another photo was compulto the lower slopes to visit the Tama had the one filminmy camera and no Lakes. By the time we were ready to depart, cloud had crept up from the west. As we bounded down to David's car, we speculated on where the cloud started and stopped, and hoped for the best. We were to be _ disappointed, however, as we drove into the cloud and said goodbye to the views.
money onme to buy a new film- bad planning!
The amount of snow on the ground gradually built up the further along the track we went. We stopped on the bridge that goes over the stream and on to the Taranaki Falls and admired a quick glimpse of the mounsory. —
After the tumoff to Taranaki Falls, the track becomes more of a normal tramping track. Progress slowed right down though, as we stopped to investigate small ice splinters all over the ground, and water trickling down behind thin layers of ice on the rocks. DOC has done a lot of maintenance on the track over the last year and made the going a bit easier than what I was expecting. We wound our way up the first proper “hill” and down the other side into more snow. When we reached the “elephant steps” we had more — stops investigating the layers of ice that had built up over the puddles. When we reached the flatter ground the going became even more interesting, weaving our way around the tussock, dodging ice sheets, or walking gingerly over them. Life became even more exciting when the first stream was reached. We wandered up alongside it until we had to cross, carefully balancing on the rocks (avoiding the iced up ones) to get across to the other side.
The scenery along this part of the track has stuck in my mind for the beauty. The stream looked like a long, shiny, white snake with black spots on its back. The rocks had ice on one side but were shiny black on the other.
The banks of the stream rose up on both sides and tussock was sticking out of the snow. Single tussock strands were encasedin cloaks ofice. The air was misty and white, and the only colour came from us. ! wish I'd taken a photo (even if it didn’t turn oud.
As we got closer to the Lower Tama Lake, the breeze which had been almost non-existent till now, became stronger and quite bitter. We stopped on the rim and looked through the murk to the white lake below us. Another quick photo and we hurriedly tumed around and retraced our steps to find some shelter for our lunch stop.
After lunch and chocolate biscuits we carried on back, stopping for an impromptu snow fight. At the tumoff to Taranaki Falls, we took the detour and went down to view the snow ring around the base of the falls. After admiring the view we carried on and eventually made it back to the car. The Duchess had trundled past us with the mountain bikers and we were soon on the road following in their wake, looking forward to the night’s festivities - which is another story!
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