Carry Me Back (Waiorongomai, 12th-13th February)

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CARRY ME BACK. I do not mean"carry me back to old Virginny" - nor "carry me back to the track" but carry me back to the good old summer time to the Narrow Neck and the Waiorongomai - for this is July b- u-r-h-h! and I am writing about a trip in February. (12tha 13th.) It was Saturday morning and the party, consisting of r"ori", Phil Barton, Mary Fraser, Ellen Slattery, Cecelia Little and myself stood watching the truok roar out of sight from where we had reluctantly allowed the Waiorongomai (Easy) party to push us outo Furthermore we hoped that our Chief Guide had stopped the truck in the correct places To make sure he walked to a nearby farmhouse to ascortain if the track did lead off from this point and to see if it was in the same place as we wanted it to be! When he returned he said that we had to walk up the road for about another ten miles!!! but we could see with half an eye ( and that was about all most of us had open) by the smile on his face that he was just kiddingo We followed the stream up for at least an hour. This was through paddocks and when the stream became gorgy we still had a grass track, At the forks we took the dividing ridge to the top and found the track very overgrown and at times we were forced to retrace our steps through becoming busheds On reaching the top some of us began to feel uncertain as to the location - so out came the map and an investigation, It took about twenty minutes to decide that, being on the highest point of the ridge we would now have to descend and after that made good progress down to a little stream bed. The next decision was for a sunny spot and lunch, Up to this point the trip had been through fairly easy country but now we found that the bush was becoming broken, the stream was falling quickly and the river bed was extremely gorgy. Windfalls littered the bed and eventually we were forced to preek clinbout and sidle round'a large fall. ery shortly after returning to the river we came upon another fall but this time climbed around and down a small slip without much difficulty. Then - we came to an "extra curly" double fall. We slid down the side of the first part and dropped thigh deep into the pool below. The second one however, had a large mossy tree trunk which we straddled at the top and slid to'the bottom. Unfortunately the moss wore out and off fairly quickly and the last ones found it harsh and fragnentary. The next feature of interest was the frame work of a hut with a tin ehimney stack completely covered ino We stopped here to partake of SLOW marching rations. The pools in the streams were full of eels and the creek bed remained gorgyo On and on - then we found our way completely blocked by a very deep and longish pool - nothing for it - we would have to swime (Edo note they told me afterwards that they tramped in their shorts and carefully carried their togs in their packs!) However upon Zooking around we espied a rope and a rough sort of ladder tied to a tree, Soon WEIZMULLER "Hori "scrambled up the ladder and swung along the rope to the other side of the pool, When it came to Cecelia's turn she demonstrated how (almost) fatal it is to hang on with one hand and let your feet slip off the are lidge you. supposed to grip. We wondered who had rigged up the ladder - and decided it was a God sende

After this ordeal we were spotted by "Taddy" and 21 from the other party. They were perched on a shingle slide above the gorge and derived much enjoyment from watching us dodge the boulders they dislodgeds Oh what fun they will have if they are in our position with we six on topo (Ed,note - wot a way for a V.P. to act - methinks he should attend an A,I.Course). We were then faced with the problem of climbing out of the gorge which we did, but "Hori" and Mary decided otherwise and went back into ite The stream was only 5 feet wide but the walls were extremely high and nothing but rock. "Hori" managed it but Mary slipped and became lodged by a tree trunk with a 20 foot dropo However, in the end she made it, so perhaps the creek had a rubber bottom there. Another half hour and we reached the forks and met up with the easy party who had made camp near a trappers camp. The time taken 6 - 8 hours! Dave -