Neill - Winchcombe - Alpha Variation

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VARIATION, JULY 14-16 successive catch with it's pleasant little voice. I wander on and as I pass a The following is based on fact, and patch of scrub, the shrill alarm-call of could happen to you. It happened after a blackbird rings out and stays for a the Egmont debacle and before France moment all other sounds. After the lost 32-3 at Christchurch. Most of this blackbirds flight, I see a squirrel, like story concerns the Neill Winchcombe a statue it sits: it's little ears pricked, survivors, who were led by the merciless staring fixedly at me with bright black Whiteside. Mainly by reason that your eyes. Only the comical plume-like tail eye witness was with them. Mention waving slightly. I move and the spell however, will be made from time to is broken, as with a graceful fluid time of the hapless victims who were motion it glides over the branches, driven on by the ruthless Middleditch. jumping from tree to tree, soon to be After we had all been evicted from the lost in a maze of branches and leaves. truck near Otaki Forks, it became ap- Sounds as of wild elephants awake me parent that the temperature was rather from my reverie. The Scouts are com- cool, but clear, with a frost combinaing. In a flash I've picked up my pack tion. As we ascended steadily to Fields and shown my heels to those peasants, Hut our minds were numbed with cold, but at the top of the Puffer I look and we crawled along, discussing forthback, to. those miles and miles of bush- coming amendments to the constitution, land, and remember again that "bush", or our prospects in the coming test. 12,000 miles away: about three acres of Fields saw most of the "Southern it, and I'm happy. crossers", established upstairs, while the -HENK "POSSUM". N.W. outcasts occupied the bottom bunks; far into the night others arrived, In the May, 1961, issue of the F.M.C. crawling, moaning into their sleeping Bulletin, it is noted that the Fiordland bags. The morning was grey and misty, National Park Board has published a and Norman Whiteside whipped his handbook on that area. An edition of party into action and under way by 7 76 pages by G. Hall-Jones, it is illus- o'clock, with the exception of one person trated by Miss Nancy Evans. A map who got his trips mixed. The journey is apparently glued to the back page. to the new Kime must have taken the If 25 members or more require this best part of three-and-a-half hours, and book, we can obtain it for you at a was bitterly unpleasant, but at the slightly reduced price. Contact Pete short stop we had made on Dennan Miller, the Editor. fon refreshments, we could already see Also in that issue of the F.M.C. that the combination of cold, wind and Bulletin is a report on Lakes Manapouri wet, had made our prospects of doing and Te Anau. It seems the National the through trip, fairly remote. Parks Authority will have both its feet firmly in the bog, when it appoints a We staggered into Kime like five icecommittee to work with the Ministry blocks, wet, frozen, and laughing, like of Works and the New Zealand Elec- hell. After an hour, in dry clothes. tricity Departments, to minimise damage fed, combined with jumping around and to scenic attractions. other psychological methods, there I can only congratulate the National kindled in us a faint spark of enthus- Safety Association on its article, "What iasm, and Whiteside drove us out once the Well Dressed Hunter Will Wear", again into the blizzard. We encountered and the logic behind its conclusion that the advance party of the Southern "Blaze Orange" is the safest colour to crossing experts, and sensed that the wear in the bush. I liked best the pas- cunning Middleditch was up to no good, sage where, with their love of statistics, so with redoubled efforts, after bidding the Americans who conducted the re- them farewell, we suffered off towards search, got "526 soldiers to look at the direction of Field Peak. Our party six colours 22,346 times by exact count" had been reduced to four as one of our this. when worked out, comes to number was complaining of severe frosteach soldier looking at one colour ap- bite and other minor injuries. Field proximately 71.162 times.-Ed. Peak was covered with snow and ice, which together with poor visibility, made