This text was read by OCR from a scanned newsletter and has not been proofread yet, so expect odd characters and mistakes.
aving survived the weekend’s Easy trip I
H thought I was off the hook; however, our fearless leader, John, obviously wanted to put me to the test again. He causally lent over the seat in front on the coach en route back to Wellington and asked if I would report on the weekend. I could not think fast enough to find an excuse so now I found myself pondering over my first weekend away with the WT&MC.
—— -L-have-to-say_that4m-actually_glad_l-did-choosethe— easiest tramp as I found it tested out my all round fitness on the first morning. After an uncomfortable sleep under the fly (I didn’t realise that I had to blow up my air mat) we headed off at 9am to the picnic area where the bus had parked. Well, that was easy enough. Then we began the ascent of Kuripapango, which took us a couple of hours. We had plenty of stops along the way admiring the spectacular views and catching our breath.
Michelle
Our party of eight reached the summit of Kuripapango, which was marked by a transmitter mast of some sort, and decided to break for a wellearned lunch. We took some photos on a large rock that I’m sure had accommodated many others like us wanting to be caught on film. The view was panoramic — Mt Ruapehu to the left and Cape Kidnappers, Napier, Hastings, Mahia Peninsula to the right. Everything seemed_to_be_going according to-plan—— until shortly after lunch when we were enjoying the relatively flat track through the beech forest. Four of our party suddenly found ourselves waiting and waiting for the others to catch up. John appeared and informed us that Rachel had fainted. With the weather expected to close in John decided to call for a helicopter to rescue Rachel. Quite a tough call but under the circumstances it was the right thing to do. Well done John.
____ __ Before
: Trip Reports
Meanwhile the rest of our party carried on to the hut. The wind was blowing pretty hard by the time we reached a fork in the track that indicated the hut was still another 30 minutes away. My pack was killing me. I’d borrowed my Dad’s pack, probably one of the first ones ever made. The metal frame is not the best, but my new boots were great. Not a blister! We reached Kiwi Saddle Hut at 4.00pm and got the fire on, sorted ourselves out a bit, and started -wondering what-had-happened-tojohn-and-the + others. Just before dark our leader arrived, a little shaken (not stirred) and relieved he’d reached the night’s stopover. We shared the hut with a couple of burly deer hunters who were friendly and full of daring stories and experiences out in the wild. Dinner was a tasty vegetarian and pasta number followed by good ol’ instant pudding (with a spot of mousse flavour) and delicious fruit salad. We were obviously much fitter than we realised as we were treated to some Brazilian dancing followed by lessons from Mark. What with the fire, dancing, and cooking, the hut soon warmed up and the layers of clothing started peeling off!
We awoke to rain sometime during the night and it was still raining when we awoke in the morning. We departed as planned at 8.30am. It was a cold, windy climb back up the hill but we all seemed to find the day’s tramp much easier. The cloud and rain soon disappeared and to pass the time as we walked we taunted one another with enigma scenarios.
We arrived-back at the coach at 1.00pm, intimeto eat lunch and stretch out a bit. I was amazed everyone made the 2.30pm departure time considering all the different directions they returned from.
We picked up Rachel and Blair at Fernhill and headed back to Wellington via the Hawke’s Bay. All in all, my 48 hours away consisted of 12 hours on the bus, 12 hours tramping, 16 hours sleeping and 8 hours miscellaneous. A great weekend with a great group of people and I’m looking forward to the next one. Team: Blair, Christine, John, Lindsay, Mark, Michelle, Rachel, Robyn, and Michelle (Scribe).