This text was read by OCR from a scanned newsletter and has not been proofread yet, so expect odd characters and mistakes.
W e arrived at Kiriwhaka- /VY papa and emerged from the truck to find a beautiful clear, calm night, perfect for sleeping under a tent fly. With the help of our leader we managed to erect our tent fly and after a welcome hot drink and some bedtime ginger kisses, settled down for the night. We were woken bright and early by a passing topdresser and relaxed in our pits while being entertained by the Mediums getting organised to leave. After a leisurely breakfast, we departed in brilliant sunshine and calm weather for our trip to Blue Range Hut wondering when we were going to encounter the wind, rain, snow, sleet and impenetrable bush that the Tararuas are so famous for. It was suggested that we just stay in the carpark and sunbathe but Prakash, our leader, was adamant that we do some walking.
The walk up the ridge was lovely and presently we came to the turnoff for Blue Range Hut. We continued on to the hut and came across a huge rock overlooking the Waingawa Valley towards Mitre. Perfect for eating lunch and sunbathing. We had been ~ considering dropping our packs at the hut and joining the Mediums for a swim at Cow Creek, but lying on hot rocks eating iced donuts seemed more appealing at this stage. It was during this lull in brain activity that one of our fellow punters, who will
remain nameless, brought out some wooden mind puzzles. Australian puzzles I might add, and so all thought of Cow Creek was abandoned as we struggled to think like Australians and solve the puzzles.
We eventually made it to the hut and after putting up our tent flys proceeded to sunbathe, read, work at the puzzles, and basically sloth out.
Towards evening our trusty leader organised us into cooking a delicious dinner of apricot chicken, followed by cheesecake, cream and tinned fruit. About the same time as we finished dinner the socalled resident meteorological expert pronounced that the wind that had been steadily rising during the afternoon would probably drop once it got dark. Strangely, not too many punters seemed reassured and the first of many defections from the tent flys into the hut began. The wind rose and the temperature dropped, so we lit the stove and the cosy hut was becoming more attractive by the minute. I Meanwhile, our trusty leader— declared that it was far too early to retire to our pits, be they inside the hut or outside the hut, and proceeded to suggest a variety of cabin games. It was then that we discovered a new side to Prakash, namely his complete misunderstanding of the word NO. His first game suggestion of traversing around the hut without touching the floor was received with a lukewarm response . . . the main problem being the stove which occupied one end of the hut. His suggestion of . using the nails that are used to hang wet socks on did not go down well, as they looked like they would be struggling to hold the weight of a wet sock let alone us healthy wellfed Easys. So it was back to square one and after a little thought he came up with his next game .. . we would all be blindfolded, given a number, and without being able to speak we would have to try to sort ourselves into number sequence from lowest to highest number. -
Not surprisingly, this suggestion was met with much enthusiasm by the MALE members of our party but not from the female members of the party who thought it just sounded like an excuse for a grope in the dark. Prakash was very persuasive and in the end the female members of the party, not being able to convey to Prakash the meaning of that simple little word NO, retired to the top bunks in the hut to watch the male their balaclavas and proceed to grope around the hut in search of each other, trying to convey their numbers by any means possible, other than speaking. Prakash assured us females that we would be very eager to play once we had watched the males a few times. Unfortunately this was not the case so a new game had to be found. We finally settled on celebrity head, which consists of everyone sticking a name of a celebrity on someone else’s forehead and trying to guess who you are by asking yes no questions. Prakash, as the infamous Peter Plumley-Walker, not surprisingly managed to guess who he was very quickly and departed to check - onour tent flys and gear in the seemingly ever-increasing gale which was blowing outside.
Prakash proceeded to pile all our gear into the hut as it was in danger of blowing away. We decided it was probably time for bed and by this time only Prakash and one other hardy soul were prepared to sleep outside. The wind increased and we inside the hut spent the night wondering if the roof was going to blow off, while the two outside wondered if the trees were going to fall on them.
It was another leisurely start the next morning as we didn’t exactly have far to go back to the carpark. We had a lovely walk back and soon got out of the stronger wind once we had dropped down the ridge a short way. On the way back we were introduced to some cave wetas which we decided were a bit confused as they were not in a cave at all but living inside a huge rimu tree on the side of the track. They were not too keen on having their photo taken and soa few punters had to make a hasty retreat from the inside of the rimu tree as the wetas showed their displeasure by sending their leader, the biggest scariest-looking weta of the lot, down to attack.
We continued on down to the carpark and ate lunch in the shelter and played games while we waited for the Mediums and Fits to join us. These games were of the more usual variety, namely, hackysack and cricket. Our short foray into the Tararuas was at anend... all that remained was to get back to Wellington and a hot shower, not to mention takeaways in Masterton. From all your punters, thank you Prakash for a very enjoyable trip; please however, do grab a copy of the Oxford Concise Dictionary and look up that very confusing little word no, as in “no we do not want to spend Sunday night at the roadend!”
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By Malinda Goodhue