This text was read by OCR from a scanned newsletter and has not been proofread yet, so expect odd characters and mistakes.
ho ever said that there isn’t enough legroom on the WT&MC bus? There is a heap of room ... when there are only ten of you on the bus! On the way to the Moorcock Base carpark, we took a scenic detour through the Massey University campus courtesy of Don, who — just like any other typical male — neglected to ask directions as to the
It was totally overgrown, in fact, and after a few minutes of crawling on our hands and knees, reason thankfully got the better of Don and we decided to turn back and use the established track instead!
That’s when the drizzle started. Walking along the spur to the mountain top, the drizzle progressed to ee scat eee ete whereabouts of the turn-off to Woodville. It wasn’t to be the only incidence of getting off-track either. But alas, we made it to Kashmir Road at last — though not quite to the official carpark. We found a great campsite 15 minutes’ walk away and got a good night's sleep: no wind, no rain. Yet. The six-strong medium group set off in the morning to scale the top of Longview alonga little-used route.
rain and strong winds so that we couldn't see a thing from atop! After an early lunch at the miserably cold Longview Hut (DOC had moved the gas heater and failed to replace it with anything else), we decided to take the more direct route to Daphne Hut, given the atrocious weather. Along the way, we almost got lost ... at least, I thought so (funny how you can get so excited about seeing a small pile of stones) although Don maintains he had it all under control, compass and map in hand. Still, we made it to the hut only about 10 minutes after the four members of the Easy group got there! (At this point it may be relevant to add that the DOC sign proclaimed it would take only 2% hours from our Friday night campsite to the hut. What did they do all day long?)
The ten of us had the hut to ourselves (no-one else was stupid enough to go tramping in that weather) and we had a really enjoyable evening together. The dinner was delicious — we had a three-course meal as we shared the food amongst the two groups! Truly no rivalry or ill-feeling between the Easies and mediums. In fact, two of the Easies joined us for the jaunt up the Tuki Tuki Stream the next morning and abandoned their counterparts in favour of getting wet boots with us instead.
After a leisurely lunch back at Daphne Hut, we made our way back to the bus and it promptly started to rain again! Luckily though, we did get a bit of a view from the ridge this time.
For the second time that weekend we stopped in Levin for dinner, and word has it that some people had Chinese from the Phoenix Takeaways again! Isn’t it about time the WT&MC demanded a 10% discount for members there? All in all, a great weekend despite the weather...
[Photo captions and page text that interrupted the story:]
Trip Reports