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with her a metal staff (or walking stick), put it down and left it there. It was a treasured possession and when she realised her loss she was contemplating a re-climb ot Belmont to recover it for by then we had descended about 220m towards the Normandale roadend at Stratton Street. Her face lit up when she received it back from Dave who, as tail-end Charlie, had seen it making the summit rocks look untidy and had removed it. Lunch was postponed until our arrival at the Korokoro Dam and it was a pleasant interlude in warm bright sunshine and calm conditions, in contrast to those prevailing up on top. Ducks were there by the dozens and our party inspected the dam and its surrounds before we moved off downstream to Korokoro Forks and up the west branch of the Korokoro Stream towards a well-known track junction at Baked Beans Bend. When we arrived there, we discovered three young heifers grazing on the grassy picnic spot. We stopped only for half a minute but when we moved off, the three heifers came too. They were positioned at about the middle of our single file as we tramped upstream towards the Bridle Track. What’s more, the cattle kept pace with the trampers and emitted occasional moos from one end and track litter from the other.
I was near the rear, close to Dave _at tail-end Charlie, and both of us while dancing along had a good © view of the scene amidships when we noticed the start of an overtaking manoeuvre initiated by Neil who was also dancing, and gathering speed, passing trampers in front of him until he reached the cattle, overtaking the three little dogeys. Neil is scouting ahead for a good venue for the afternoon coffee break, I thought. But I was wrong!
Lloyd Wilkin Once ahead of the Dogeys, Neil watched for a likely cul-de-sac and when he located one, he turned and with outstretched arms, directed each dogey into it. The idea was that the trampers should bypass the dogeys so that all the trampers were to the front with the dogeys behind. The up-front trampers did not want to miss Neil’s Last Roundup and they stopped to watch the fun. This blocked the planned bypassing operation.
Meantime, our leader who, remember, was right at the tailend, was taking an altogether dim view of the proceedings and protested that if the dogeys wanted to go tramping, well let them! Anyway, the dogeys won because they made a bolt for it and got back into the line of trampers amidships. We were all off once more and before long we arrived at the spot where we had crossed the stream on the morning’s tramp. The leader called a break for afternoon coffee which caught Ollie and friends in a dilemma 25m up the Bridle Track. The dogeys were happy to graze without human company and that was the last we saw of them. Ollie’s dilemma was whether to be sociable and forgo the hard-earned extra height just gained and descend to the party, or to stay where she was and have her coffee in isolation, or to keep going to the top of Magee (373m) and be first home to a hot shower. She did, of course, do the sensible thing. After coffee, our party quickly climbed the Bridle Track to the top of Magee and the vehicles, farewelled one another and moved otf home. Our thanks to Dave for stepping in at the last minute to take over the trip leadership and averting a possible cancellation. cd
WI&MC May 1997