This text was read by OCR from a scanned newsletter and has not been proofread yet, so expect odd characters and mistakes.
Four trampers enjoyed a couple of days in Aoragni Forest part a few weekends back. Stuart, Graham, Lousie and Alison walked in from the Mangatoetoe stream towards Mangatoetoe Hut on the Friday night with a few others off on other adventures (trip reports pending I hope). There was a fair bit of circling around in the dark looking for the hut in the manuka forest beside the river. Eventually a collective decision was made that the particular patch of grass we were standing on was an perfectly good campsite and who needed the hut anyway. (It was 200m downstream. We blame Jeffs old map and Yibai's new GPS!). We had a fine warm night out under the fly and set off next morning following the river to Kawakawa Hut for lunch
The bush was beautiful and lush and the track fairly overgrown. There were a few big slips to be negotiated and a few fallen trees to be scrambled under or around but nothing impassable and we made good time to Pararaki Hut for the night. On the way we had some fun (and gained some war wounds) shoving bodies and packs through slicing grasses, stabbing broken fern fronds, hooking bush lawyer and stinging nettles. By the end of the day Alison's legs appeared to have lost a fight with a dozen tiny but very angry kittens
Sunday was another fine day — a burst of steep climbing straight after breakfast took us 500m up the hill and then, following the trusty orange triangles, straight back down the other side to another river and Washpool Hut. Another bit of a grunt up onto Surge (c.700m) and a lunch stop in the sunshine on the top with views back down fo the coast. We set off again at a fair pace as we still had a way to go and were due back at the bus at 4pm. At some point the fearless and possibly feckless leader managed to crawl under a fallen tree fern, loose all sense of direction, scramble around in the undergrowth for a bit, eventually spot a trusty orange triangle and proceed to lead the party up the track they had just walked down. For at least 15 minutes before anyone noticed. Stuart thought we were might be heading the wrong direction when we set off but was too polite to mention it loudly. Anyway it was still a beautiful day so we turned ourselves around and went back to the fallen tree, found the correct marker this time and headed on along the ridge to the back of The Pinnacles, looking lovely in the late afternoon sunshine.
No one had great expectations of Aorangi but we had a very fine tramp — pleasant weather, a solid bit of walking and plenty of good conversation. Heartily recommended.
Punters - Stuart, Graham, Lousie and Alison.