This text was read by OCR from a scanned newsletter and has not been proofread yet, so expect odd characters and mistakes.
~- October 5 to 7
by Michael Lightbourne
It was a bit of a surprise to get a phone call from our Transport Officer at 3 o'clock on Friday afternoon advising that our rental van company had just moved from Thorndon to Webb Street. However this was no major drama, because I was located about half way between the two places, and the only problem was working out how best to go through town to the Railway Station. Because I had arrived at the rental company first, I had a choice of two vans, and naturally picked the van that I was assured was the better one. On arriving at the Station, we opened the back and found the seats were positioned right up against the back window, and there was space only for a few boots. It turned out however that one person pulled out sick at the last minute, and we had a spare seat. Still, there were 9 of us in a ten seater van, and it was a serious squash to get everything in. We had a dinner stop in Levin, and then Clinton kindly took over the driving. We turned inland at Mangaweka, heading for the Mangakukeke Road. About five minutes before the road end, we caught up to the medium and fits van, and we arrived at the road end together. Quite amazing after such a long journey!
It was time to set up two large flies, and on opening a poles bag, discovered we had only half a pole. Great! Can somebody please volunteer to be Gear Custodian? We need you. Anyway, we ended up tying the fly to a fence post, and ironically it was far more stable than the other fly which had all its poles, but blew down during the night. Fortunately it didn’t rain.
So we set off on Saturday morning across farmland, which became quite steep as it neared the forest park boundary. It was about then that it started raining, and didn't stop until about lunchtime. We ascended through the bush towards the Hut without incident. About five minutes before the Hut, though we didn’t know that at the time, we stopped in fairly miserable conditions to have a decent snack break.
The Hut was empty when we arrived, our two fitter groups having passed through earlier. We did meet a number of people on the track, but they were all heading for Waterfall Hut to join our Fit group, in what must be a very small hut! The first priority was lunch and a brew. Then Danniel suggested collecting wood for the fire, and without any further prompting, keen volunteers Alex, Jesse and Gemma were out the door and down the hill to collect some wood.
Initially at the Hut it was a white-out, but there was some excitement when it began to clear and we got an impressive view across the farmland as far as Mt Ruapehu. For an afternoon stroll, Clinton, Simone, Gemma and I left the weight of our packs behind and went further up the hill, through tussock, towards the Pegs (high points on the Hikurangi Range). We went through some small patches of snow, and there was much more snow further up. But we were starting to lose visibility in the cloud higher up, and it was getting cold and uncomfortable, and so being an Easy tramp we had the luxury of being able to turn around at this point.
Back at the Hut, I was keen to get a game of 500 going, but was struggling to find participants. About 3 of us were buried in their sleeping bags and that’s where they were going to stay for the foreseeable future, Jesse had gone for a late walk up the hill, and the others were outside on the deck. Then I realized this was what Easy tramping is all about — sitting on hut decks in the sun chatting the afternoon away. Very late in the afternoon, the others were finally agreeable to a game of cards, but we tried 6-handed 500, which in my opinion is far inferior to the classic 4-handed version, the reason being that you have two other teams working against you so that very few calls can be made over 6 No Trumps.
Dinner was Vegetable Curry, and I had people bring far too much food up the hill. We had % of a billy of rice leftover, and I realized that for future occasions, 100 grams of rice per person is plenty. Alex, who was using a two litre ice cream container for his food bowl, announced that he would be able to finish off any leftovers, but even he was beaten in the end. There was no suggestion that any dessert was required that evening. After dinner, I had become a bit disillusioned with 500 (a temporary state of affairs which is now thankfully over), and we played some President and loser (to put it nicely), which we played with about 3 or 4 packs of cards. This was at the request of Alex, to make it “more fun”, but it was a serious problem trying to fan out 30 or 40 cards in your hand.
Sunday dawned beautifully sunny and without a cloud in the sky. It was probably the hardest part of the weekend, realising that we had to go down the hill, when my strong natural inclination in these conditions was to climb up the hill and into the snow! However it was a very pleasant stroll through the bush on the same track we had come up, and even the walk across the farm was enjoyable.
This is a genuine Easy tramp and we were back at the van well before lunch. We stopped at the kebab shop in Bulls for lunch, and those who had missed civilization had their fancy coffees. We arrived back in Wellington at the very civilized time of mid-afternoon.
The trampers were: Michael Lightbourne, Simone Musin, Kylie Adamson, Alex Horvat, Sanya Hemery, Jesse Bailey, Gemma Bailey, Danniel Bourke and Clinton Hunter.