This text was read by OCR from a scanned newsletter and has not been proofread yet, so expect odd characters and mistakes.
9-11 May 1997 Marlene Radiach
late Friday night we had a good sleep at the Lodge before setting off at a leisurely pace down the Bruce Road turning off at the Silica Rapids sign and following the track down past Punariku Falls which eventually joined up with the Whakapapaiti Track and then onto the same named hut.
= I “he outline for our trip was as follows: arriving
The scenery was certainly spectacular, the lovely springs with their colourful mineral deposits and the nice walk through the mountain beech forest plus "the occasional glimpse of the mountain. The weather — was definitely on our side the whole weekend, the hut was the cosiest, and the food was delicious; thank you Helen (she assured us that the satay chicken was not from a packet and judging by the taste, I think she was right). The company was interesting: we shared the Hut with two hunters, one of whom worked with the orangutans at Auckland Zoo, so if anyone is keen to further their knowledge on the hairy critters...
The next day we walked out to the Mangahuia Campsite losing our leader Helen, and meeting up with her at the pickup point. Were we really that bad Helen? I hope not because the next tramp we will try is a medium one! All in all it was a very interesting trip, with interesting people and we all had a lot of laughs.
The team: Marlene, Caroline, Helen and Rob. cy