This text was read by OCR from a scanned newsletter and has not been proofread yet, so expect odd characters and mistakes.
BEGINNING WITH AN ‘MW’
his was my first tramp with the Wellington Tramping & Mountaineering Club. In fact, it was my first real tramp since ar- - riving in New Zealand from the UK last September so I didn’t really know what to expect. My workmates guffawed when Tteld them what Tl was doing over the Queen’s Birthday Weekend. “What? You're going away with a bunch of trampers?” they laughed. “But they’ve all got long beards, woolly jumpers, and uncontrollable flatulence.” Well, my buddies were wrong on the first two counts. The third, however, gained some credence Pages
pretty early on in the trip: on the Friday night drive up, in fact. Still, what did I expect? Twenty trampers, 20 Chinese takeaways, and a bus (?) with little or no suspension. Yes, those chicken chow meins and sweet and sour pork balls soon worked their way through. Before I knew it, blan- ‘kets were levitating, amushroom cloud rose, and cries of “who cut the cheese?” rang out above the haze. I knew then it was going to be a weekend of surprises. We arrived at the base of somelli mountain range beginning with” a ‘K’ in the early hours of the morning. “Easys” got to “esr the bus (Duchess, don’t take it to heart, Ed.), which I didn’t complain too much about. We awoke bleary-eyed, just in time to catch a glimpse of the Fits striding off into the distance.
It was a beautiful sunny morning - a shining example of the inadequacies-of weather-forecasters. We had a long, leisurely breakfast before hoisting up our back packs and setting off. Ten minutes into the tramp, my back and shoulders were feeling the strain. After half an hour I was in agony. I mean, if I really wanted to add 15kg to my body weight, I’d succumb to a diet of I I WT&MC July1996 I bacon butties and jam donuts and damn well enjoy the experience. But no, I chose to strap a canvas monolith to my back and impersonate a mountain goat for 3 days. Fortunately, ] soon forgot about the weight as the banter from my fellow trampers got going. Lots of tramping anecdotes were relayed, from the guy that broke his leg to the one that lost his teeth, and the time ‘we survived on burned peas mixed with Milo’. I prayed desperately that this particular weekend wouldn't be added to their repertoire of ‘tramping stories from hell’.
The four hour tramp to the hot pools was surprisingly testing though the climbs were always rewarded with breath-taking views. Much of the track was cut from a sheer rock face with heartstopping drops down into the most spectacular gorge. The fastmoving river below was a jadelike trickle from where we were standing, and I was ever-conscious of the fact that there were mere centimetres between myself and the yawning abyss.
An hour or so from the hot pools, the weather closed in and the rain started to fall. We managed to erect the flys just before it bucketed down and made it to the hot pools before the hordes. Two hours and a few hundred wrinkles later, we decided to drag ourselves out and get the dinner on.
By this time the heavens had decided to deal us a few hands of sleet, and rustling up the chicken chasseur was not a pleasant experience - especially for Jo, Lisa and John who were manning the billies. The rest of us huddled under the fly, desperately trying to find a bit of floor space that wasn’t taken up by an ever-expanding dessert. Yes, Tash and Angela did us proud with a chocolate mousse, marshmallow and choc chip affair. Dinner over, we rolled each other to bed and settled down for a night that was cold, wet and unpleasant _enough for.us to not want to repeat it.
We packed up in the morning and made off for the hut, which was packed but warm. Our snacking and card-playing was rudely interrupted by a mad dash for the door amid cries of ‘naked man jumping in river’. We followed suit, hoping to catch a glimpse of him before he jumped in. Well, there wouldn’t be much to see once he got out. Still, it wasn’t a total waste of energy: the guy had great buns (Tash’s words, not mine).
We all slept out on the deck that night, which although icy cold, was infinitely superior to the mayhem of a packed hut. I remember looking up from my sleeping bag to see the dark, jagged hills clawing at the skies, and an invasion of stars pushing back the clouds. I couldn’t believe I’d been in New Zealand eight months and not done this before..
The spectacular scenery was matched only by the superb company. Thanks guys for making my first tramp so enjoyable. Or rather, thanks gals. Yes, the male component of the group totalled an impressive one. I guess ‘Easy’ just isn’t macho enough. Perhaps we should consider renaming it ‘the chill-out tramp’, ‘the cruisers group’, or what about ‘real men don’t do it fast’? Now, there’s an original concept.
Those on the trip: Tracy, Tash, Vicky, Lisa, Jo, John, Angela, Kirsty, Wendy, Allison, Sarah.
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By Tracy O'Halloran