This text was read by OCR from a scanned newsletter and has not been proofread yet, so expect odd characters and mistakes.
he Orient Express could not I ee right to the Otaki Forks roadend so we started walking just before the road crossed the Roaring Meg stream. We bid the Easy party farewell and followed the road up beside the Waiotauru River. The light dimmed as we got to the end of this road. We were then on a track. Lyndsay pointed out a rusty boiler and other equipment that was used by a sawmill that used to operate on the side of the Waiotauru River. After an hour or so of walking we camped on a grassy flat beside the Waiotauru River. Our leader advised that he wanted to be away by 8.00 the next morning. The party was up bright and early on Saturday morning and we were away at 7.00. We followed the Waiotauru track for a while and then dropped into the river and then back onto the track just before the river reached the Forks. At the Forks we turned left and followed the river for a while. We then joined an old logging road that was covered in toi tol — some members of the party received
some superficial cuts to their legs. At the junction of the Snowy River and Tregear Creek we wandered up Tregear Creek. The trip was intended to travel up the Snowy River but some members of the party were rather slow in the river. After wandering up Tregear Creek for about half an hour in fine warm weather we climbed onto Tregear Ridge. The climb was hard work. The area had been cut over by forestry and we crossed a couple of logging roads and followed another couple. Eventually we reached the top of the ridge and the travel became reasonably flat along a fairly well defined track. A relaxed lunch was had on the ridge —unfortunately the sun was obscured by clouds at times. After lunch we continued to follow the ridge. The travel was flat for a while and then we started climbing. It was a long hard climb. Just after we had broken above the bush line we had a long wait while a couple of members of the party caught up. It was a lovely view but a cool nor-westerly was blowing.
John Hoffeins
Most of the party reached Kime Hut just after 6.00. During Saturday we had climbed around 1,300 metres and tramped for some 10 hours — a challenging sort of day for a Medium trip. There was a lovely pasta-based meal for dinner, and just for a change Kime Hut did not feel like an ice-box. Sunday was another fine day. After a leisurely start most of the party wandered up to Mt Hector and sat and admired the view for an hour or so. It was fine but there was a fresh cool southerly blowing. We then wandered back to Kime Hut and set off down the hill at about 11.00 am. Lunch for most of the party was on Table Top in the sun. The party then wandered on down the Judd Ridge track to where the Orient Express had been parked on Friday night, arriving at around 4.00 pm. I think we all had a good weekend.
Leader: John Collier Followers: Sue Higgins, Steve Hoare, Chris Mellor, John Hoffeins, Glynne Lloyd, Craig Lucena, Lyndsay Fletcher, and Daniel Jang.