This text was read by OCR from a scanned newsletter and has not been proofread yet, so expect odd characters and mistakes.
13 September was my first tramp with the Club — my fist “tramp” fullstop really, being a Pemmie-new- to-New Zealand and the delights-of escaping from it all to the mountains. It was one that I thoroughly enjoyed though, with amazing scenery, a good variety of terrain, beautiful weather and great company.
T: Easy trip to Mt Taranaki/Egmont on 11%—
The drive up in the coach was my first taste of Club life with a “nice” selection of wartime favourites such as “Lily the Pink” and “Run Rabbit Run” being played to us by Roger to jolly the troops along. It was good fun, but it did lead to a bit of a mutiny from objectors in the back row, and the eventual mysterious disappearance of the aforementioned tape! The food stop en route was our last taste of relative luxury and civilisation as we found a nice little café for fish and chips. The chips were good even if they had “run out” of salt and vinegar! We eventually reached North Egmont roadend at about 12.30am and bedded down for the night under the veranda or flies. One last rendition of Run Rabbit Run was played to send us all to sleep, which was starting to work until the local youth decided to pay us a visit with their mobile “sing-along-disco”. Thankfully though they soon became bored and went home leaving us in peace. : The next morning we were all awoken by rain, which seemed a bit strange as we were inside the veranda. It was, of course, condensation; either that or a booby trap set up by the trip leaders to get us all out of bed! Either way it worked, and everyone was up few hours’ tramping took us on up and around the mountain, crossing a fun bit of scree en route resulting in a few white faces, shaky legs and palpitations: All seor-reeovered though; and-ther-it was all downhill to the hut, the route taking its first minor casualty as Sharon decided to do her “sliding along the wet piece of wood on one leg” trick, resulting in a swollen and bruised knee. Nothing too serious though, so we all settled down to some well-earned lunch.
After lunch and a spot of sunbathing, it was off to Bell Fails, a quite spectacular waterfall about 30 minutes from the hut — and we only managed to get lost in the forest on the way back! Glyn decided to take a couple of dips at the falls, while Paul very nearly followed him. Glyn’s first dip was voluntary, as he stripped down to shorts and dived into the icy waters. We were all very impressed — but not as impressed as we were when he did it again, now fully clothed and attempting to cross the river for a closer look at the falls! Paul, on the other hand, did make it across the river unscathed and dry, but it did take him about 20 minutes to make his way back across after Glyn’s dip, and there was a lot of balancing on one leg, a few contemplations, and a few near misses. Despite the fact that I was now poised with a camera ready to “capture the action”, he didn’t slip though. Why do these things never happen when you have a camera in your hand! On the way back, Paul and I decided to do a bit more exploring and detoured off along the “river track”. It was good fun, a little bit swampy, and brought us out further down the river.
The Easy trip was then off to a good start and set off before the Medium trip on our way up the mountain. We maintained this lead for the first hour or so, but thought that we ought to humour the Medium trip and let them past after the first hour or so — once the “real climbing” was done! This was really only because we’d found an amazing view stop and didn’t want to give up our seats. After re-fuelling, the next
Back at the hut, Christmas began. The Christmas theme was Andrew Dewhurst’s idea, our trip leader, what with it being “Holly” Hut and all. Well, when I say Christmas theme, it was really only Christmas pudding, but it did lead to lots of discussions about Christmas celebrations/traditions/food and the odd outburst of “Jingle Bells”. The food was excellent; pasta with tomato and tuna sauce, which was very good, even if Kim’s flatmate had inadvertently eaten half of the mushrooms, and Andrew’s wife Sharon didn’t know that she was supposed to bring the cheese (domestic misunderstanding). The Christmas pudding was A1 too, partly because of the superb custard cooked by Rebecca. Rebecca was originally on the Medium trip, but despite the fact that she had followed her flatmate Will’s advice and literally just brought herself — no food, no cup/ plate/dish/cutlery — we decided to let her join our trip as we could instinctively tell what a good custard I chef she would be! Full and contented we all then crawled off to our sleeping bags shortly after nine. The hut was great — nice and clean with a wonderful potbelly, which simmered away through much of — the night to give us a nice snug night's sleep.
Next morning we were up at seven and away by 8.30am. It was a little cold and misty at first, but by the time we had climbed up from Holly Hut, it was another beautiful clear day. The next couple of hours were spent going down through bush, which was good contrast to the ridge walking the day before.
There was some technical stuff, a few ladders and a few drops — all good fun. We then emerged at the gorge at the bottom for a short sunbathe before climbing back up to the road and the picnic site.
The picnic site was scenic but had no water, so Rebecca and Andrew gallantly offered to walk up to the Visitors Centre to get some. I don’t think they realised quite how far it was though, as it was the best part of an hour before they eventually returned. They did say that “the chips were excellent”, although they still looked pretty hungry as they tucked into their lunch (hmm?).
Finally back home via the obligatory Chinese takeaway, who had apparently been tipped off we were coming and had lots of hot food ready and waiting. Roger was pretty chuffed with his free drink for being the driver too!
Allin all, an excellent weekend. A great introduction to the real New Zealand outdoors, and I can’t wait to do my next trip!
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Sharon Phillips
Trip Reports