A Middle-Northern Crossing

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A MIDDLE-NORTHERN CROSSING After astroll up South.Mitre stream with Nick Jennings and my brother, Bill Baker and myself decided to spend three or four more days in the hills. So the next.morning saw us leaving our campsite in South,Mitre Stream at 8.00 a.m. for hopefully, Mid Waiohine via Baldy and the tops. By the time we had got onto Baldy the weather had crapped in, sO wi thout mucking around we carried on. Broken Axe Pinnacles provided us with the first of a series of excitements to come further on in the trip. I believe that the first sign of piking (a dirty work to most trampers) came further along the ridge when a signpost pointing to- Angle Knob hut. disappeared. But after a quick lunch at the Jumbo terns, we voted unanimously to carry on to Mid Waiohine. After 9 hour - of rain, cloud and cold, we finally arrived at Mid Waiohine. The next day seemed fine, but we didn't get away until which was unfortunate because when we got onto Aokaparangi, there was the dirty big southerly coming SO without stopping, we decided to race the southerly to Andersons. Lunch was had here, and it soon got a lot colder as the southerly had caught us up. Another vote saw us travelling onto Nicholls for the night. Next day proved to be a bit embarrassing as with the 10 or 11 hours we spent going on to Te Matawai. three hours were spent looking for tracks. The first 12 hours were spent on Nicholls where we got onto the track down to Park Forks and then realised we were about 90 degrees out (its marvellous what a compass can do in bad weather). The other 1 hours were spent at Dracophyllum bivvy, where we waited for the cloud to clear (1 hour) and on Pukematawai where my memory saved us fram any more wasted time. The next day out to Ohau was comparitively uneventful except for the bit of lunch we had at the road-end. We wem expecting to walk to Levin, So we decided to have lunch first. Cut with ali the gear and off with the boots and then, "Here CCT2S a car", mutcers Bill and the car stops. So all the gear goes back into our packs and we arrive at the railway station in bare feet with 30 minutes wait for the Blue Streak railcar. And so ended a great 4 day trip in the hills. RTCHARD THUM.