This text was read by OCR from a scanned newsletter and has not been proofread yet, so expect odd characters and mistakes.
by Bronwyn Bell This years Paua Hut Guy Fawkes weekend trip was unusually also a circus trip of sorts... there were a handful of people who could keep 3 balls up in the air, and then a handful who attempted their best. With a couple of pirates and a fire dancing character along for extra entertainment value...
So, the trip started out in typical easy civilized fashion, we didn’t leave the train station till Saturday shortly after 9am. Arriving at the Catchpool parking lot shortly after 10am. Set out on the track around 10.30am. Nice sunny day, punters all happy with gear in tow.
The intrepid easy leader thought she'd save the punters from having to cross the river 3 times, so decided to take them up the fabled Brown’s Track, because it comes out just across the river from Paua Hut, and you only have to cross once. Well, unbeknownst to the leader... Brown's track is out of commission so is not marked from the Orongorongo track, and as much as the scouts of the group (who were at the back for some reason) looked and looked where we thought the track might start... we missed it. So we ended up where Cattle Ridge track meets the Orongorongo track, only to realize it was Cattle Ridge track when we were near the top of it... but we found the fabled Brown's Track anyways and headed down, the very steep track to the river... perfect for beginners (yeah right...)
We arrived at Paua Hut just in time for lunch with a brew, how civilized indeed. After lunch the intrepid leader told everyone they could go for a walk while her and the other lazy people hung out in the hut (drinking real coffee) getting ready for dinner and juggling ball making. When the crew arrived back we got out the horderves, finished chopping veggies for dinner, got out the music provided by Andy on his nifty little ipod speaker unit, made some juggling balls with balloons and rice... and then all of a sudden we were invaded by 2 pirates and another juggler...
The two pirates, who will remain nameless other than as ‘pirates’ for legalish reasons _, concerning the organization who looks after the park — Pirate # one, who is well known as a pirate, and pirate # two, who doesn’t know he’s a pirate yet until he sees this— had stacks of fire works with them. The other juggler who arrived at this time, and the intrepid leader - both work for a certain organization which will remain nameless, and due to our being employees of this organization which happens to look after the park - we were both rather concerned about fireworks, however the pirates assured us that the club does this every year and it's not a big deal and would do it anyways in true pirate fashion, like the bogans who set up under a tarp by the river and had a gigantic bombfire that the intrepid leader could smell all night in wafts of wind going through her little anti-social one person tent.
Needless to say (but I'll say it anyways) the juggler and leader were much relieved when it started to get a bit damp (cloudy not quite rain damp) that night, and the pirates and punters were all co-operative about going down to the river to let the fireworks off where they wouldn't go into any trees.
So, after much merriment of watching things burning and exploding in pretty colours and formations... the crew headed back to the hut for some hot cups of tea and dessert... which was an unusual form of chocolate fondue.. the chocolate melted like the intrepid leader had never seen before... but the party managed to eat all the fruit and marshmallows and the weird clumping cake like melted chocolate anyways...
Next morning was breezy and slightly drippy, that same cloud like light rain type weather... which fortunately hadn't made the river go up too much... the group did not want to take the intrepid leaders way back and opted to make the other juggler (Gail) their leader and go out the easy way. But intrepid leader found 2 willing punters to go back up Cattle ridge track to find the other side of Brown's track to see where it comes out onto the Orongorongo track... and of course it's sort of marked with old red tape that of course is so obvious when you see it...
All in all a good fun trip. Thanks especially to the pirates, the juggler and jugglees, the music bringer, and of course the rest of you for being good fun punters.
Cheers from the intrepid leader who would like to remain nameless (and who was that mystery fire dancing character??)