A hunt with Stu and his mates

A hunt with Stu and his mates

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Editor's Note: This was inspired by an article written in a "Rod 6 Rifle" magazine found in Triangle Hut. Some phrases have been plagiarised from that article. For best effect it should be read in a deep, gruff, matter of fact voice

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The forecast wasn't good. Heavy rain in the eastern ranges.

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Strong winds and snow down real low. Still we all needed ao 's gl o

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'e anived at the Rangiwahia roadend around half-

*j eleven and set off by torchlight on the easy stroll up to Rangi Hut. The girls were like a pack of loose forwards leading the charge up the hillwhile the boys covered the backs. It's always a bit of a worry having girls along on these gnarly trips but we'd asked around a bit and believed them to be fairly fit and OK in tough conditions. As it turned out they didn't cause any distraction for the boys and were actually good value to have along.

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It was fairly wild in the morning so we got on the blower to one of our mates who was stuck at home with a wrecked knee from a previous encounter. The forecast was still bad and he expected Huey to pack a major punch! We were a strong team and we knew we could make it. We set off regardless, with the wind right up our snouts. By the time we got to the tops the wind was fair hightailing it across the Main Divide from the east. We had a right royalblizzard blowing fair up our jacksies. Not a place to muck around, so we didn't. Just plugged on north along the ridge and not finding any sign we dropped straight down to Triangle Hut thinking we had more chance of finding some game down there.

ces and re forks rice dry

, a long r n o f a ruddled 'e dined

Wewere lucky, as it happened, to find a possum bailed up in the corner of the dunny. One of the party did the right thing by the environment and grabbed his ice axe and struck it a blow with the pick right between the shoulders. In fact, he hit it so hard that the thing was fair pinned to the bench and putting up a real fight! Next up he did the right thing by the possum and struck a second blow with another ice axe and crushed its head with his boot. One of the girls reckoned he had a real mean look on his face when he did all this, but when you're on a kill and you don't have any dogs you're thinking of your own safety. A and tie! :hose to side trip swollen ;though teatime -dressed the hut z stayed walking

TheTeam Bacls Stu (Stu) Leader Bruce (John) One of the boys Trev Ueffl Talker Nigel (Roger) Scribe & hunter Sharon Uo) Scribe's consultant Raylene (Eva) One of the girls rain. A /e some rvehicle r Roger ramatic l, Roger

Loose Forwards

$eatest t01/2002

Tramping and Mountaineering 2001 /2002

Roger Bolam &Jo McKenzie a bit of a leg stretch so we set off regardless. I've never been one to be pushed around by a storm and

I wasn't about to start now!

mate of mine once came off second best to a possum and I tellyou it doesn't bear thinking about! A lot of people talk a lot these days about saving the environment but it's real good to see someone actually doing something about it. Would be good to see ice axes taken on more trips in the future. Together we can make quite a difference.

Despite bailing up a possum we had a real problem when it came to tucker time as no one had brought any meat. Still, full credit to Stu who made this massive side dish which, as it turned out, was real tasty and {illed us up real good. One of the other lads tried his hand at a trifle of sorts and apart from the custard turning to custard, it was all right too. Mind you the creamed whiskey made it a bit feisty.

After supper it turned out that one of the boys, who I didn't know that well, was a bit of a talker and would burst into song about every five minutes. Not too sure what he was on, but it didn't seem to be working!

Snowed during the night so one of the boys did the right thing by one of the girls and lugged her across the river. Wasn't even his sheila! You don't see much of this these days, but I've always thought if a bloke can carry a

1751b pig on his shoulders, it's no big dealto help out one of the girls.

Followed our old tracks out over the tops and met up with the others back at the Isuzu.

On the way home we dropped in on Stu's blood relatives. Good to have some home cooking and a hot brew. Noticed a couple of pigs in the back paddock but they weren't quite ready for bacon so we left them for next time.

Looking back on it, it wasn't such a bad weekend. We did our bit for the environment and we came out smilinq.

ToP

-Blowing real nasty a/'tt

Phone call to our n:yz/

\ \ / ' \ Rangi Hut \ _ a/ \''"/"Possum lsuzu friangle Hut