This text was read by OCR from a scanned newsletter and has not been proofread yet, so expect odd characters and mistakes.
by Tamara Linnhoff and Kevin Cole After a long journey three groups arrived at Flora car park in the early hours of Friday morning. All had the same idea and in a flurry of activity the road end shelter rapidly filled to capacity. A few hours later we awoke to a glorious day of sunshine, blue skies and perfect tops-tramping weather. An easy walk through the bush was broken by a brief break at Mt Arthur hut for refreshments and a chance for the girls to admire the local talent in his tight strides. Once the ladies had composed themselves we continued up the track towards Mt Arthur rapidly leaving the bushline and gaining fantastic views - yes landscapes this time.
At the turn off to Gordon's Pyramid we all dropped packs and headed on towards the summit. Obviously we could have scaled it had we wanted to, but eventually we turned back due to time constraints- easy/medium's rebel at the prospect of walking in the dark! After a lunch on the ridge top with the Kahurangi NP at our feet, we headed down, and up, and down and up the path that took us up to Gordon's Pyramid. By this time Spencer’s highly contagious knee injury had infected another three members of the group, although these individuals continued to outpace the remainder who remained well (which says a lot about the fitness of the rest of us).
After a brief rest at the summit of Gordons Pyramid we descended into the Goblin Forest before emerging close to Salisbury Lodge.. not the most remote feeling place to be given its 40+ inhabitants.. luckily we had brought tents with us. Temperatures plummeted under the clear skies but we were sustained by a good dollop of Lamb curry followed by a gourmet dessert. All slept well except Donna who remained restless — but who wouldn’t be sharing a tent with Stijn who proceeded to dazzle the girl with a technicolor light show which the rest of us enjoyed from the other side of the canvas. (Apparently nocturnal flashing is a perfectly respectable Belgian pastime).
Saturday was an easy day walk up to Peel Lake with much lounging on tussock, picture stops and generally just a very enjoyable relaxing non-taxing day on the Tablelands enjoying the fruits of the previous day's climbing. The only reported injury was a nasty chaffing incident or so it was claimed — either way, an un-named punter spent a suspicious amount of time hanging back with a tub of Vaseline in one hand.
Back at the hut a good supper of couscous was followed by cake and gallons of custard, brewed up before we realised that nobody had brought any sugar — dooh! Many of us took advantage of empty bunks in the hut whilst the hardened few stuck with the comfort of their tents.
Sunday it rained and we walked out drenched, enough said! The cripple quota increased steadily throughout the weekend to the point that not a single one of us mastered a graceful exit from the minivan at Picton - all stiff and jelly-legged, topped off by Spencer's dive into the waiting arms of the bus driver! All in all a wonderful weekend, heaps of laughs, no serious injuries and no blisters to talk of.
Punters were: Tamara, Kevin, Stijn, Spencer, Paul, Catherine, Lesley, Sally, Donna, Peter, Jackie.