This text was read by OCR from a scanned newsletter and has not been proofread yet, so expect odd characters and mistakes.
MY FIRST TRAMP — BY EowARD O’MAHONY
When the new editor of the Mouth'n'Ear asked me to write an article for the magazine I felt obliged to say yes as my usual trick of avoiding the requestors company wouldn't work this time as I happened to live in the same house as him. Also he was the person who put me in touch with the Wellington Tramping and Mountaineering Club so I did owe him a favour. I could have made more use of his knowledge before I embarked on my first tramping trip however.
I had put my name down for a medium tramp in the Ruahines for the first weekend in October and duly met up with my fellow trampers for the trip at Platform 9 of the Railway Station on Friday evening. I had been looking forward to the tramp all week, particularly in light of my recent purchases, a new hiking jacket and a pair of boots. Once the introductions were over and most of their names quickly forgotten we embarked for the Ruahines in two station wagons. We hadn't even reached the Rimutakas and I had dozed off in the passenger seat, I did however wake in time for dinner at Carterton. The weather had turned poor which, according to the forecast, was only a foretaste of what was to come. Inside the café our trip leader was considering changing our tramp location to somewhere away from the bad weather. One or two people within the group were against this believing that regardless of weather conditions we should stick to our original plan. This fundamentalist approach was not a course of action I was in favour of but I largely kept my views to myself as this was after all my first tramp; also I had to leave halfway through the discussion in search of a shop as I had just been informed that we were meant to bring our own packed lunch and breakfast, only dinner was a communal effort. Luckily there was a New World still open where I bought a loaf of bread, a jar of peanut butter and a bunch of bananas. Thankfully by the time I got back to the café sanity had prevailed and our original tramp location had been changed.
A couple of hours later we parked the cars, took out our gear and proceeded to walk the short distance to Sentry Box, the hut we were going to spend the first night. The short walk was made a little longer by taking a wrong turn; secondly unlike everyone else I did not have a torch or headlamp and so had to ask for the pace to be slowed while I cursed myself for not buying a headlamp when I was getting my hiking jacket and boots earlier in the week. On unpacking my bag I was soon to discover that, in keeping with my practice of always coming prepared, I had forgotten to bring my jacket. Looking around the hut ! also noticed that everyone else had plastic bags inside their rucksacks to keep their sleeping bags and all their other gear dry. Oh shit! I began to get that sinking feeling. The only good news was that I was offered one of the four bunk beds for the night, there being eight of us all told.
The following morning I was woken by howling wind and began to wish that it was Monday morning and I was back at work. I was soon to notice however that lashing rain was not accompanying the howling wind and I began to count my blessings. Once breakfast was over we began our tramp up a steep incline. After about two hours we came to Parks Peak Hut at the top of the ridge. We had a short break before descending down the other side of the ridge. I found the descent to be more difficult than the ascent and was soon playing tail end Charlie. Once the descent was over there was the small problem of crossing a stream which, try as I might, I couldn't see a way of traversing it without getting my shoes and socks wet. Once across the stream it was out with the bread and peanut butter for lunch. It was also decided that we would be staying here for the night at Upper Makaroro Hut which on first impressions looked in better nick than Sentry Box; unfortunately it was no bigger so it looked like I would be spending the night on the floor. For the remainder of the day we panned out by the river’s edge taking in the sun’s rays. Feelings of guilt at taking it so easy on a medium hike were assuaged by telling ourselves that the clocks were going forward tonight so it was really an hour later than it felt and there was no way we would make it to the other hut and back by nightfall. My only complaint was that I didn't bring a book which I had actually decided not to bring as opposed to intending to bring one and forgetting it. As nightfall set in we started preparing dinner which consisted of pasta, pasta sauce, tinned fish and vegetables. I had been charged with taking care of desert and so had brought along some homemade cookies mass produced and sold in Pak n'Save. Not long afterwards we started preparing for bed and my chances of getting a bed for the night began to look good when a number of people started talking about sleeping outside. Disappointingly only 3 of the group opted for a night outdoors and so I ended up on the floor. The worst part of the night was waking up and looking at my watch to discover it wasn’t even midnight. Thereafter I woke every hour or two which I suppose was payback for taking a snooze after lunch as opposed to more tramping which would have tired me out with the result that I would have slept like a log. Next morning I began to fear the worst when putting on my still wet shoes and socks which were about to get even wetter as we were to recross the stream and head back the way we came. I soon found out however that walking in wet shoes and socks isn't actually that bad. The only bad bit was the thought of having to hike back up the ridge we had come down yesterday, however the thought was much worse than the reality with the hike up proving rather pleasant. Two hours or so later we were back at Parks Peak Hut when a light drizzle began to fall. This got me thinking about my lack of a jacket or pack liner. As we descended down to Sentry Box Hut the drizzle didn’t get any heavier, it even stopped once or twice. I found the second half of the descent by far the hardest part of the tramp and was grateful to get to the hut at the bottom for a quick lunch before making the short walk back to the cars (we managed not to take a wrong turn in daylight). We quickly changed our clothes as the drizzle got heavier! Within twenty minutes of us starting the drive back to Wellington the drizzle had turned to torrential rain. I was never one to believe in the luck of the Irish given our history but perhaps just this once.