Herepai – Roaring Stag "Lodge"

This text was read by OCR from a scanned newsletter and has not been proofread yet, so expect odd characters and mistakes.

Mike Kennelly BLURRGHHH!. : What was that Michael?' The offending pile was swept from the back of the van, and everyone held their noses until we arrived at Featherston and washed the floor of the van down.. We arrived at. Putara roadend without anymore ado, except for the sighting of a searchlight scanning the sky for a Russian (or perhaps Fijian?) invasion. We stumbled (largely the result of Murray's driving) (My driving is not that bad = Ed.) out of the van, made an extended fate well to the Fit Trip, and camped slightly up-river of the swing bridge. A cold, fine morning (what happened to the rain?) and we set off for the Roaring Stag turnoff. The thought of mattresses and a 15, min. flat walk (according to the leader) saw us cpting for Herepai Hut instead of the Lodge. Thirty minutes later, and puffing after climbing a couple of hundred feet, we finally arrived at the Hut. Five of us went for a walk up Herepai while the rest (two) stayed behind in the sun and chopped some firewood mi one had strict orders not to touch the axe. With everyone back at the Hut the cards were put on the table to play a game 'of Julian's'. Irene wanted to play 'strip-jack naked', but everyone except Phil thought it was too cold. After Harry, who incidentally suggested the game; won both hands we switched to 'black bitch'. Harry seemed to be quite good at: this game too (must have been because everyone else was too busy deriding. Phil's fire), so we dropped the cards and started dinner. Two hours later and the carrots and spuds had just begun to boil I think we. should have boiled the water first! We wére finally served up.with a runny conconction and a cheesecake to follow. Sunday morning saw Darryl trying to unload some extra food that his mother had stuffed in his pack - even Harry refused the tin of baked beans. It was still fine as we made' - our wav' down to Roaring Stag. A rather short lunch was had inside the hut (it had started torain) and we headed back to the roadend. : Round to the Mt Bruce roadend to meet the Fit Trip just as they arrived. (Brilliant timing on our part - Ed). -/3

on the trip were: Darryl Cooper, Phil Baylis's, Irene Jones, Mike Kennelly, Jane offord, Harry Smith, Michael Wakelin.