No Man's Land - The Main Range

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NO MANIS LAND - THE MAIN RANGE. 11 We have not wings, we cannet soar; But we have feet to scale and climb, By slow degrees, by more and more, The cloudy summits of our time. I - Longfellow, It was on the week end of the Reeves track working party that we set out for a week's trip in the Tararuas, There were four of us - Phil Barton, Tom Meyer, Owen Roberts ( who joined the party at Kime) and myself, Nobody was leader, but in the event of indecision a simple majority vote was to settle any differences and the only reason why I am doing the write up is, I suppose, because I have a pen, Our aim was Kaitoke to Shannon, well I say our aim > but I think Shannon was mine, whereas Phil and Tom aimed at Levin only(???). We left the truck between 10 and 11 a.m. on the Sat turday morning and had lunch in the old Dobbies, Our intention was to reach Alpha by Saturday night and to do a reverse Southern on Sunday, spending the night at Kime. Owen was going to a party on Saturday night and was to oome up to Fields (or Kime) on Sunday night, However, by the time we left Dobbies, with our rather heavy packs, and reached the top of Mt.1 Marchant, the possibility of reaching Alpha was in doubt, The only thing to do was to push on, and then to use torches, as Tom said he knew the track around Hell's Gate like the back of his hand - not that the back of his hand is particularly like Hell's Gate, When darkness duly fell, out came the torches, but alas we weren't on the right track and my altimeter soon showed that we were lower than any point on the Marchant Ridge, But this was no calamity as Phil and I were both equipped with additional voices - to save our own an occasions like this - in the form of tin whistles. I volunteered to retrace our steps and to blow my whistle every few feet, to give them my position and for Phil to do likewise for me, except that they would be standing still, It worked wonderfully well at ten or fifteen feet and they sounded really close, but, the farther and the higher I went it was not so good, My ears began playing tricks and I could hear whistles not only in front and behind me, but also above and below, and in trying to "home" myself on Phil's blasts began to fear that I had unwittingly got on to the right track and had passed them, However, I need not have worried myself as it was no' ce easy as that.

-1p- When I returned I found that during my absence a vote had been taken to sleep as near as possible to our present position and we soon found a relat tively flat ledge, broad enough to accommodate three lying stretched out. However, there was one little snag and that was in the form of a Totara tree which divided our bed into two so that one of us would have to sleep by himself. I was odd man out and in order to have an early night we decided to cut out the evening meal and thereby to save food too, Well, we all got into our bags and one would have thought got into deep sleep, but no, not on your lifé! That little Totara tree was destined to become a souroe of great dissension between Phil and Tom, Tom started it by asking Phil to let him get down out of the tree up which he had been pushed, Phil said that he had not moved an inch and that if he gave Tom any more room he would be giving him the lot as he was already hanging on to the ledge by the skin of his teeth! Happily, I am able to say, after many "Get me downs" and "Let me ups", the new day arrived and we aimed at reaching Alpha by 10o'clock - a.m, However, it was between 12 and 1p.m. when we established ourselves at the hut, Phil and I having noted not to go any farther that day. We consoled ourselves with the thought that Owen could not possibly have reached Fields - or Kime - that night if he had spent the previous one at a party. He would take a taxi to the cottage and spend the night there, come up to Kime the following day and probably reach it the same time as we. Phil cooked the evening meal while Tom and I went out and shot a few deer - Tom. shot one to be exact I we might have shot more but they were a long way away. )I must admit here too that we were not a well balanced party as we seemed to be at each other all the time, Phil was spending up to Thursday,at the most,in the hills, and was not concerned how far we travelled so long as he had an enjoyable tramping holiday and used his movie camera. Tom might spend the whole week - but - deer stalking was his object and mine, mine was to REACH SHANNON, Having a keen eye on the food position I had cut down on all my meals and was an egg and a slice of unbuttered bread up on Tom. Phil, through a short stay only could afford to eat more. But apart from the food situation Tom and Phil were divided on stopping places and in this I remained neutral, One minute I would be with Tom awaiting Phil to finish a film and Tom Would say "How much LONGER is he going to be, I'm freezing. Oh! now what is he doing"? A close up of moving snow grass won't do anybody any good, I In one particular instance Phil went to great lengths to explain that he was only changing films, Then it seemed only the next minute and I would be with Phil, Tom having asked us to stay put and to keep quiet while he took a look for deer over the next rise. Soon Phil would start moaning with "Where the heck is he? I'm FREEZING, We've been waiting nearly all night now, I suppose he realises that we are waiting for him?" To make mat tters worse Tom would not even let us blow our whistles, I prayed that Owen had neither camera nor rifle!!! When we reached the False Spur Tom spotted a large herd of thirty to forty deer, feeding by a tarn. We left our packs and "crept" down on to a ridge overlooking them, noticing with some misgivings that only half of them remained. Tom moved much closer and as soon as he had opened fire Phil, with movie camera and myself with field glasses bobbed up to record and witness the proceedings,

A really big stag was shot dead - and Tom followed the remainder into the bush killing a few more, Owen was waiting for us at Kime having spent the previous night at Fields and coming up early Sunday morning. He said that he was not very disappointed at not finding us at Kime and had spent the day in glorious sleep. Next morning the weather was"crook" and we decided to await better conditions. Phil then took us by surprise and announced that he had business to attend to in town and that he would be going out. Tom and I accompanied him over West Peak and a little way along the track, We then returned to spend the rest of the day at Kime playing "500. # Phil's early departure endowed us with bags of food and as we now had plenty of fresh meat, including liver, a big feast was ordered, On Wednesday the three of us set out early in very misty weather with the intention Anderson's that night. In order to accomplish this we had to twin of Tunui and Tuiti with their piece of No, 8 wire tentiendf CANESE and 80 foot chain dropping vertically down the sheer side, to enable trampers to descend in comparative comfort, As good fortune would have it by luneh time we had successfully natigated the intervening peaks and the 500 foot saddle. Considering our paeks we had made exeellent time but, by the time we had actually lowered our gear down the other side of the peaks themselves and got onto Maungahuka, it was 3.30 p.m. As there was nothing else to be done we pitched camp by a lovely tarn and prepared a hot meal, The weather was not the best - still cloudy - with us sometimes above it, Next day our object was the same as the previous day - Andersons! This dat Tom managed to shoot a stag after his third carefully meditated shot. On the first one the animal looked all around and at us but could not locate the source of such a funny noise, despite Tom's smoking rifle barrel, After the second - shot, and when Tom had moved much - - closer, the deer had evidently grown accustomed to the "bang" and à so, had ignored it, contimuing its feed. Tom was fuming and to say the least Owen and I were 89L316 highly amused - in fact we were bursting our sides with very loud laughter. Tom went right up to the stag and we shouted to it to look down the barrel ( to avoid further embarrasment) and "bang" it was DEAD! The type of country had changed a little since we had crossed the twin Tararua Peaks, with the peaks being more detached and having steeper bush saddles between them. In fact the terrain was almost undulating.

There was, however, one notable exception encountered just before lunch on Thursday. We had chased some deer ahead of us and had seen them dash unhesitatingly into a saddle, but, when we arrived there found a sheer drop of some 30- 40 feet, and I am ashamed to say that whilst I was by myself and trying to find a way down ( on a two inch wide ledge with rock overhanging) I realised the advantage of not having a pack on my pack, In fact I was becoming tired of the whole business and convinced myself with some little hard trouble that such a heavy bulky something nuisance pack was big and ugly enough to find its own way -down - and 1 with remarkable agility in hopping from outcrop to outcrop it did! My two companions immediately informed me that I was " no longer in the best of mountaineering circles" to which I replied that I had never been in them, anyway. Tom was next outside the "best circle" and Owen who had been trying to leap down like a der I forgetting that deer do not carry packs on their baeks - quickly joined that ostracized throng to make it number three, I must mention here that when Owen opened his pack at the end of the day, he found that t his corker new billy had changed its shape, It reminded me of the pineapple tin from "Three Men In a Boat" after they had tried to open it without a proper opener ( it had a big dent in it just like a "mocking ear to ear grin", too. ) At the end of the day I was really pleased to see Andersons, but what a place for a fine to smoke you out. Never mind, it was a wonderful little aluminium,wired down, three bunked haven, The following Friday we made Te Matawai Hut, after climbing Pukema tawai, in moonlight, We all felt very fit on reaching the top but the descent to the hut really exhausted us, so much in fact that it took us two days to get out, a journey which normally takes only a few hours. If we had not decided to go down to the Hut, I have no doubt in saying that we would have reached Shannon??? Before concluding, a word of serious thought on altimeters. I must voice my wholehearted approval of mine, not only as an instrument for measuring heights, but also as avery accurate forecaster of the weather - in this it really was 100% Dave - Each clown may rise And climb the skies When he has found a stair. But joy to him That dares to climb And hath no help but air. = : George Wither.