This text was read by OCR from a scanned newsletter and has not been proofread yet, so expect odd characters and mistakes.
ramping with my mate Terry could never be described as dull or predictable. The dramas started before we had even left the dock in Wellington - guess who had left their old, but much-loved fibrepile jacket in the terminal? In contrast, the ferry crossing was a success because Terry came off the boat I at the other end up one pair of sunglasses, borrowed from someone who wasn’t leaving the inside of a bar all weekend. During the minivan ride with the Hutt Valleys that followed, let’s just say we didn’t gain any points in the areas of maturity and sobriety.
Saturday dawned claggy, and I don’t just mean our heads. We had no sooner opened our eyes than the sandflies were feasting. We breakfasted on pizza, donned our hugely swollen packs, and ambled off along the lakeside track. By the time we reached _Lakehead Hut it was p***ing
By Lisa Glading Hukere Stream track. The bush was beautiful and _there’s a magnificent waterfall up there. Everything had that “after-rain freshness” about it and we climbed at a damn good pace, easily catching the HVTC party.
Breaking out of the bush and down and we both decided we hadn’t travelled down there to walk in that. So out came the sleeping bags over lunch and we sat out the best part of three hours.
Feeling much rested, we set off once the rain stopped, across the valley and up the into the first basin took my breath away. I stared in awe at the ring of mountains that surrounded us high above. We left the Hutt Valleys to camp and pushed on, with one last big grunt needed to see us up at Angelus Hut. The next hour and a half was without doubt the most challenging aspect of the weekend. With the wisdom of reflection, it was a combination of weary legs and heavy slab snow, but very carefully we picked our way up it. Terry was out in front plugging great steps in his plastics. At one point we had a little mini-avalanche and were deflecting clumps of snow as they slid down the slope at us. We also struck a couple of stress-fractures across the face that demanded some careful manoeuvring, but a mix of good luck and good management saw us at the door of Angelus Hut at about 7pm.
Dinner didn’t take long to prepare so we were soon greedily gobbling a frightening volume of beef in black bean sauce. By then the HVTC Medium party had all retired for the night and we were only one glass each into our cask of wine but silly as rabbits. We sat up whispering and giggling for a while but soon listened to our tired muscles and slunk off to our comfy pits.
The next morning was magic and, yes, I have the photos. to prove it. Our mission was just to wander halfway down Robert Ridge and camp for the night, so we had a lovely lazy start to the day. While Terry caughtsome extra ZZzs, Isprawled myself out over the rocks up behind the hut and drank in the views. Stretched out in the sun with snowcapped mountains allaround, listening to Pink Fleyd and Dylan through the walkman - what more could anyone ask for? When we did finally get going for the day, it was ata very view-absorbing pace. I don’t think we walked for more than 15 minutes without stopping to drink or slap on more suntan lotion.
By mid-afternoon we were perched above the third basin out on this knob on the ridge talking to an interesting but eccentric chap we met along the way. Below that point the snow was thinning so we convinced ourselves it would be the ultimate campsite. It seemed very exposed to me but we were lucky with the wind, or lack of. With all the time on our hands, we built a low wall around the back of the tent as extra protection, and even finished it off with the snow version of sand castles along the top that looked like turrets.
As the sun started to sink we shared the wine with our new friend, and he recalled his many adventures around the world. Eventually he skipped off down the ridge and left us to a scrumptious dinner in our : idyllic setting.
After a good night's sleep it was a spectacular place to wake up. Our last day found us ambling our way down through the skifield and back to the lake edge. We were lucky and hitched a ride back to the shop at St Arnaud which meant all the sooner were we scoffing ice creams: and slapping sandflies again. It was a wonderful trip with stunning weather, great com- . pany and views that will remain with me for a long time.
he Interislander was running late so instead of leaving at 5:30 it was 6:15pm. The ferry sailing was un-— eventful with the various groups disappearing into their own corners, discussing tactics or lack of. Within minutes of disembarking and collecting our packs, the tramping contingent were loaded into Blenheim taxis and disappearing into the night.