This text was read by OCR from a scanned newsletter and has not been proofread yet, so expect odd characters and mistakes.
There are 2 Cattle Ridges that I know about. One of them is in the Rimutaka Ranges, the other in the Tararua Ranges. Don't get them mixed up! The Rimutaka version is a very pleasant daywalk, gentile on the knees, a good track. The Tararua version is the complete opposite: not for the faint-hearted, it's one serious ascent up to the Ridge. In fact I'm still getting over it, at times we were nearly rockclimbing.
I arrived at the Railway Station with a reasonably light pack for a change. I’m starting to get good at this packing business. However it was a sign of things to come when Alex Duthie, our trip leader, announced that he was not feeling well. Nothing more was said about it, and we all piled into the bus and left. We had dinner at Featherston, and some time was spent iocating the good fish and chip shop. Eventually we arrived at the Putara road end, where the only facilities are a picnic table and a track sign. Fortunately, this being a Medium level trip, we were not camping here: we were starting our tramp that night. So with our torches on, we headed towards Herepai Hut. We had only been walking for a short time when we had to stop. Alex needed to rest, a bad sign. A little further down the track and another rest. We stopped at a swing bridge and set up the fly, and Alex said he could not do the tramp.
We got up early on Saturday morning and it was really windy. Alex left first, in the direction of the bus. The poor guy would spend the whole weekend there, but that’s the way he wanted it. Fortunately we had experienced medium tramp leader Amanda Wells with us, and combined with my own trip leading skills, we were able to continue as planned. The track to Roaring Stag Lodge was in good shape and we had morning tea there. It’s a very new hut, which sits next to the Ruamahanga River. Then we took on the ascent to Cattle Ridge. Words cannot describe the two hours of hell it took to get there. One positive thing to come out of it was looking back and getting a view of the hills, partly obscured by the cloud higher up. We could see the dot that was the hut, next to the river. Finally Cattle Ridge Hut was in sight, it was about that time we were hit by strong winds that were unbelievably icy for early December. We had some lunch in this little Hut that was built in 1960, and which has obviously had no maintenance since. It was raining with poor visibility so we had to consider our options. We decided to check out a nearby tarn and then head down to the Lodge. Amanda looked through the Hut Log Book and noticed that all the comments referred to misty, cold, wet and miserable conditions. I asked her if there were actually any fine days up here. Yes, back in 1986 she said. No just kidding, apparently there was one fine day at Labour Weekend just gone. Five minutes into our mission to see the lake, so disgusting was the weather we all turned around and left this awful place.
So we faced the descent from the Ridge. This is the stuff of Medium trips, you have to be prepared to do anything and everything. There is unquestionably a big difference between these trips and the Easier ones. Finally, we saw the Lodge which that night was to house us, the Easy party, the Easy-Medium party, and the Lisa Tinkley Independent Party. It was a full house. Dinner was a delicious fish curry, followed by Christmas mince pies, which were to be carried by Alex, but given the circumstances and my “reasonably light" pack, I had offered to carry them. My pack was no longer “reasonably light’, particularly when going up that Ridge.
Sunday was pretty straight-forward, taking the track from the Lodge to the roadend. The Easy party left first, and made good progress, it was near the road-end when we caught up to them. There was a mechanical scare with the bus which I probably shouldn't go into considering we’re trying to sell it, but fortunately a mechanic called out from Eketahuna checked the bus and there were no problems, so we headed home.
The trampers were: Alex Duthie, Amanda Wells, Elizabeth Jackson, Edward O'Mahony, Dirk Naish, Tamara Lester, Spencer Clubb and Michael Lightbourne.