This text was read by OCR from a scanned newsletter and has not been proofread yet, so expect odd characters and mistakes.
Easy Trip to Kirwans Hut
Leader: Lyndsay Fletcher
Scribe: Anita Davies
12 keen punters on it, including Lyndsay. Everyone turned up keen as mustard except one person who couldn't make it. He was, however, kind enough to bring down his allocated food and equipment (the fly). This is where it all went wrong. Our wonderful, I’m never wrong, trip leader kindly received the offerings from him. He put all the food away in various people’s packs, and then with some wisdom that has yet to be explained, put the fly away in his car. This was not discovered by the rest of the group, until we tried to set up camp at roadend at 2 o'clock in the morning. Roadend for us was at the old gold mining town of Capleston. Imagine, eleven people, one big fly and one very small fly. We all began our group bonding session right there and then — seven people squashed under the big fly and three under the little fly. Where, you may ask, did the last person sleep? Well, Lyndsay enjoyed communing with nature while trying to gain a little shelter under a DOC sign of the area. Lucky there was no rain. Saturday dawned fine, although a little overcast. The entire camp was woken at 6am by the largest swarm of sandflies ever know to man. (Slight exaggeration but you get my point.) After trying to ignore them for a couple of hours, we all admitted defeat and got up to partake in a leisurely breakfast. It was at this point in time, that another member of the party asked a very pertinent question. Has anyone seen my boots? Slowly it dawned on her, bugger, they are still on the bus somewhere in Reefton. As luck would have it though, she had brought sneakers to
[ all went wrong atthe ferry terminal. The trip had
ear in the-hutHimm,-a-3=day-tramp-in-srreakers.—§ Should be fun. After setting out, we began our leisurely stroll to the bottom of Kirwans hill. It was a lovely walk, flat, and everyone was getting along really well. We reached the bottom of the hill after only 1% hours and decided that this was a good place to settle in for lunch. After all, it was only 3 hours to the hut. Or so Lyndsay would have had us believe. We set out after lunch, all happy and gung ho to take on this hill on our way to Kirwans Hut. Kirwans Hut is located in the Victoria Forest Park, it has 20 bunks, and is at an altitude of 1294 metres. Thirty minutes after setting off, we had our first stop. We set out again; 30 minutes later we had our second stop. After five or six of these stops, we dared to ask the question of our leader, how far is it to the hut. The reply, “about a kilometre, 30 minutes or so” — 30 minutes later, and another stop. “I think I may have misjudged this, I think it’s only about another 30 minutes”. An hour or so later, we finally found a sign that stated, 30 minutes to the Kirwans Hut. Yeah, it really was only 30 minutes to go. The first sighting of the hut, had to be the sweetest sighting that most of us had made in a long time — 72 hours after we had set out, we finally made it to Kirwans Hut. Exhausted, but elated to have made it. The hut, though not up to the Park Royal standard, was very plush. Especially since it came with rodents, and that was free of charge. Anita was having a little lie down on the top bunk, when one of the said rodents, decided it wanted out. After throwing itself off the top bunk, using Lyndsay as a landing pad, it shot out of the hut door, not to be seen again all weekend. Due to the fact that we took so long getting up to the hut, we realised dinner would be a little later than normal. As we were having lentils, it took nearly three hours to cook. By which time, even the rat would have looked tasty. It was followed by nearly two billies full of fruit salad. Very nice after the day we’d had. I must say though, a certain member of the group, not mentioning any names, John, decided that a pack of cards was a lot more important than kumara and + —cheese-forourevening meal-rle-~was,-however-saved——_— by Paul who seemed to have brought everything bar the kitchen sink. Most people tend to cut off the amount of cheese and salami they need and bring only enough milk powder for the weekend. Paul brought enough for everyone for the whole weekend. Although at this point, it would have been sensible for us all to hit our sleeping bags, and recover, some of us found the energy to stay up till: 11pm playing 500. Most enjoyable. It was then that we had another
Trip Reports
30-minute episode. The group had a choice to make. Stay at Kirwans Hut the Sunday night and do a day walk to the gold mines in the area, or tramp on to the next hut and do a circuit. Sure enough, this decision took 30 minutes. It was decided that we would stay both nights and do a day walk on Sunday. And on that note, we all hit bed in readiness for Sunday. Sunday dawned. Well, almost. It was grey and overcast, with a wind that chilled you to the bone and drizzle every-now-and-then. After a very leisurely wake up call, a keen group headed out at 1lam fora day walk to the gold mines. The stragglers, four sensible people, who stayed in the hut and lit the fire were happy to stay behind and keep the hut in good order. The day was cold and the day walkers were gone for about 6 hours before returning chilled, but invigorated from their stroll in the woods. In the meantime, though, we had been joined by a rough and ready group of about 6. They called themselves the m/f’s from the Wellington Tramping & Mountaineering Club. We were gracious enough to let them in and share with them our fire and comfortable sleeping arrangements. Although for a couple of people, Raymond and Harry, this was obviously not good enough, as they chose to sleep in the great outdoors. With 17 people in the hut, Sunday night was very cosy. Both teams took turns in the kitchen, as there would have been too many cooks otherwise. The rest of us took it in turns to play 500. It became the thing to do, and before long everyone had had a go, or else they were helping (well they thought they were) those that were playing. Another late night followed. Later for some as the challenge of just, one more game, became too great. Another highlight (or lowlight depending on who you are) was Lyndsay’s piece of useful (useless) information about raisins. You see, according to Lyndsay, after eating many raisins, one suffers from what is politely called “flatulence”. About 30 minutes or so after this story was told, a certain female member of our group kindly informed everyone ___....thatawhat.Lyndsay-said-about-raisins.wasindeedtrue— We offered a few words to help embarrass her a little, but this was met with the comment “It’s alright, I can control it”. Needless to say, this was found to be extremely funny and embarrassed her even more. Monday, the trip down the hill beckoned. The m/ f’s were kind enough to offer to clean the hut, given that they were leaving later than us. This was very quickly accepted and we set off for our walk down the hill. Very surprisingly, the walk down was a darn sight easier than the walk up. We stopped for lunch at the bottom of the hill and then-had a gentle 1-hour stroll through to roadend where the bus was there to meet us. It was with great pleasure, that we can also say that we beat the m/f’s out. Ok, so they left two hours after us, but we still managed to beat them out by at least 10 minutes or so. The bus looked so sweet after our long weekend. What was even sweeter was that one person in particular still had dry boots. After waiting another 30 minutes for Harry, who had decided a very gentle stroll in the wilderness was the thing, we packed up the bus and headed to Reefton. Considering we were 142 hours early getting out, a decision was made to stop at Reefton for a 30-minute stop at the local pub. Very satisfying. After picking on the eastem side of the Victoria Range in the Maruia Valley, we made our journey back to Picton and the ferry terminal. Unlike some other WT&MC members, we made our ferry sailing and after partaking in a very nice meal at the Toot & Whistle, boarded the Arahura for our return journey. And just when you thought it was over, I couldn't let this finish without mentioning John’s prized possession which he bought back with him from the forest on Kirwans. Hill. You see John checked in a little something at the ferry terminal, “a stick”. When the luggage came out in Wellington though, John’s stick had been broken in half. Upon seeing this horrible sight, John was set on storming the Tranz Rail desk and demanding that he be paid some compensation. Some of the other members of the trip, however, were able to calm him down and explain that it was just, “A STICK”.
Lyndsay.
—Overall,-a-ver-enjoyable_trip-had_by-all. Thanks... —-