This text was read by OCR from a scanned newsletter and has not been proofread yet, so expect odd characters and mistakes.
The fun of this trip is the best part! All females signed up and it was a great bunch of people. The trip comprised of fun jokes, tramping in the hobbit bush, thunder & lighting overnight and eating scones on Sunday. With a terrible weather forecast of rain and high winds the trip still went ahead with a positive attitude by all. The fun started on Friday night when the trip leader gathered us together and said with a straight face “now tomorrow the plan is we are going to get up at 6:30am and get started straight away to catch the good weather in the morning.....” Everyone listened in anticipation — in the end it is ok we will just get up and see DOC first then decide the plan!
After 6:30 turned into 9:45am, we all piled into the DOC office where the burly ranger, who looked like he’s just finished an excursion of Mt Everest, told us that we were all insane to try to attempt to walk anywhere in the conditions forecast. A revised plan was agreed and we started our day walk. As we were setting off another burly man came running out of the car park ina very agitated state telling us not to attempt the walk as metres of rain were about to fall- being a bunch of tough girls and having Sue our Leader who was extremely aware of the hazardous weather conditions- we set off into the bush!
The track was slippery, the bush, mossy and surreal, we were faced with well maintained steps. Steps, steps, steps — The Endless Steppe (wasn't that in Siberia), it certainly felt ‘Siberia Cold’.
The trees and bush were clad in moss and lichen. Everything seemed moist and damp, and thriving with life, yet olde worldly at the same time. It was as though we were stepping back in time — ‘Hobbit Time’.
The reason for all the moss and lichen became clear as we reached Wilkies Pools where we were swamped by a tidal wave coming off the mountain. We clung onto Constanze for buoyancy as we paddled back to the track then ambled along it taking lots of photos. At one point we heard a whooshing noise over the gale force wind and saw Konini lodge flying overhead, looking like something from the Wizard of Oz. We trusted the AlCer's would be okay then turned off at the Ridge Track and headed down to Waingongoro hut for lunch.
We were quite hungry by then having been battling the elements for a while so were thankful to have a roof over our heads even though the wind attempted to take it away. After lunch we headed back out into the hurricane and swam up the track to the junction, then skied down to Dawsons Falls. The Falls were looking quite impressive with all the snow and ice around them. So much so we had to indulge in some ice climbing. Unfortunately we didn’t have the right gear so just stood on each others shoulders until we got to the top. By then we were quite hungry so made our way back to the DoC lodge and dinner.
After dinner we succumbed to sleep, only to be woken by a huge thunder storm in the wee hours of the morning. Our thoughts briefly went to our companions in the wider park before sleep overtook us again.
As mentioned at the start of this account, Sunday entailed huge sacrifices by everyone as they were forced to eat jam and cream with scones. The arrival of Sarah and Alistair’s group meant were able to escape off the mountain and head back to civilization in time for Top Gear. The tried and tested punters were: Emily, Simone, Sue, Annemarie, Constanze, Helen, Shuying and Jill.