Olivine Christmas

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OLIVINE CHRISTMAS Featuring- Kev ("I go home when my durries Brian ("Whaddya expect for sixty run out") Moynihan. bucks") Goodwin. Pete (For God's sake don't panic) Jan (Get a donk Kev) Goodwin. Laing. Barry (C'mon C'mon breakfast) Biggs. Owen (Tarzan) Cox. Sue (Especially imported from Auck- Jeff (Purle Long Johns) Bryant. land) Webb. Andy ("Last time I was here") Haines.

Bl- y ("Send her down") Huey. By midday the day trippers are attack- Gloomily we survey the grey surge of ing the steep snow grass and snow while the Dart as it sweeps down from China- "Huey" takes a few hours off. Meanmans Bluff. Can a strand be picked to while Andy trots off to a nearby hut to cross the worst of it? Fifteen damp and change his library book. Sadly "Huey" cold minutes prove that it can't. How- only relents temporarily. Shiveringly ever our return to Glenorchy brings tents are pitched in the rain near the Harry Bryant's launch chugging across Forgotten hut on the following afterthe lake so we reach the opposite bank noon. However, clear sky the next day dry-footed. entices us up to a gem of a snow-covered Eventually we begin. A rotting tram lake. through Kev the expertly bluffs to leads the Olivine up. and sun. down track brings us up the Dart to Lake The next morn is one of those Sylvan and bush-bashing and blazes see ("Where the hells the deer trail") mornus at the dreaded Beansburn Ford shortly ings as we retrace our steps the after lunch. Fortunately there is a Olivine. Better to shiver in the up river. across it. One by one we grab rope So it's up the rocks we until blocked rope, lean back and forge through the by rapids. Gingerly we hop climbed over a waters. giant boulder, access to a route Next day we push through scrub bush on the true giving snaking to the upper and tussock to the Beans Burn Bivvy flats camp. site. right rock. A haven for a rock-climber or Ever climbed a boulder fifteen feet caver, its shattered rocks lift up their high? Ever dropped hat at the top stacks and chimneys thirty feet to the of it? Then team You can sky. even sleep in it, as picture scrambling uhere proves over the next two days. Outside Jan up, to Cow saddle the next day. The leaden skies splatter and drizzle con- saddle itself is as flat as Tarn tinuously. quite an anticlimax. Amply made up lstor Day five dawns damply. by Hidden Falls creek with its boulder- "Warm dry, warm dry" mutters Kev hopping and park-like glades. Happiness from the pit. However he must be isa Park dry Pass campsite. beckons steeply in the morncoaxed out, as tracks must be made in ing. We bush and tussock it up, to. a the direction of our airdrop in the grand view of the Rock Burn basin. Olivine. With light packs the scramble Unerringly Kev leads round a steep sidle. up to Fohn saddle is easy: However Over the ridge waits Lake Nerine; green descending through the murk looks trick- and glistening in the midday sun. Then ier. Andy swears to a rib of red rock it's time for a romp round to North Col that threatens to bluff out. Fortunately for a glorious glissade into the Routeit doesn't so we can wade the power- burn. Despite an abandoned milo top ful and rising Olivine before it gets and pot-mit an old Hunt campsite gives too big. Damply, scrublined deer trails a comfortable sleeping area. are followed down to the flats. On ar- Morning breaks but the dreaded rival the natives (O.T. & M.C.) burst lethargy has struck. Time to pit and sunfrom the undergrowth. bash. Barry frustrates furiously as no-one "Seen our airdrop?" we query. will climb Somnus with him. However "Saw it being packed for the upper he settles for a scramble with Andy east Forgotten flats back in Queenstown- of Harris saddle. Glorious views of Mr 'bcut two hours up there." Erebus and Lake Wilson are gobbled "Oh". and the day is capped by a waterfall So next morning we stomp after it cling and marathon run back to the through the rain. Andy is sick of his Routeburn flats. boots so throws one away while pound- Meanwhile back in the Routeburn ing the head of the river. Fortunately lethargy has been vanquished and Kev the Uth & M.C. lost and found service becomes the first to do a direttissima of is in operation this year so it is rapidly the Routeburn falls in moccasins. Folretrieved. Camp is pitched on the top lowed by Sue, Owen and Jeff he returns flats, three thousand feet below the by the tourist high way they meant to plateau. A day later and we're still there. take. Grimly we gaze upwards during a Our last night. Damper and honey break in the weather. Tantalizing it beck- sweet on the tongue. A venerable hutons. A tongue of snow cleanly severed, bliss. not like the grubby trailing ice roads Next day we toddle out, armed with seen elsewhere. Colour the air red with sour gooseberries and a slight increase in frustration. fitness. Yes, we are now ready to do Eleven a.m. on the fourth day. Blue battle with the people, pollution and exsky. tortionate prices of Queenstown. "D'you want to go up?" pleads Barry. "O.K." ANDY HAINES