A "super" trip

A "super" trip

On the ferry back to Wellington, John is writing names - Gabriel Ossenkamp, Grant Newton,

Andrew Chisholm, Stuart Palmer, Yibai He, Paul Jennings, Michael Hinton, Greg Thurlow,

Shane Connolly, Haniette Can, Andrew Chinn, Nicola Noble, Tim Sikma. The others say, are you writing the trip report? John says, no, and if I was it wouldn't be about you.

It would be about superphosphate at four o'clock in the morning.

ecause that's how Gabriel's trip begins, in a farm super bin at 4am on Anzac Day. In the rain. The super bin is somewhere east of the Aorere Valley, about as far from Picton as you can get without falling off the edge of the world or expiring from sleep deprivation. We get there by sitting in a Catch-a-Bus for so many hours it begins to seem as though for all our lives we've bounced along in the dark while failing to sleep, a bizarre kind of normality from which no possibility of escape exists.

The super bin is one of those standard things that happen on every WT&MC Fit trip. It's regular WT&MC Fit practice to sleep on 0-10-0 NPK fertiliser in a bin beside a farm airstrip for a whole two-and-a-half-hours starting at 4am before you go hamping in the rain.

Shane and Haniette are ready to go at 7. This is because they know something the rest of us don't. A whole geological era ago, before the time of infinite nocturnal bus rides and superphosphate bins, Haniette in Wellington telephoned a DOC man in Takaka and said, we are going over theLead Hills to Adelaide Tarn on our first day. The DOC man said, surely you mean you intend to come to Takaka and wait for good weather and then go to Adelaide Tarn in two or three days? Harriette said, no, we are going to Adelaide

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Tam on Day One, in the rain if necessary. We are Fit Tongue and Meats, she said, and we have jobs and mortgages in Wellington and we have to be back on Monday to sit in meetings and in front of computers.

Then the DOC man laughed out loud over the telephone, right in Harriette's ear.

So Harriette and Shane are thinking an early start is a good idea. We won't see them again for most of the day. We won't see anything much for most of the day. We rub the superphosphate out of our eyes and find the airstrip on the map. Then we walk up a long, wet hill feeling just slightly better than soldiers landing on Gallipoli, with Yibai going in front, leading us into the jaws of death. On the ridge, which people with maps say is the Lead Hills, we walk through jumbly granite blocks and see grey views. We eat lunch in the rain and think about Ham7, who is probably right now buying his fish and chips in Wellington and thinking about changing his library books.

Harry had the right idea, thinks John. Meanwhile, water is cascading out of the grey sky into John's pack through a hole in his pack liner. John does not know this. The hole has a special notice beside it written in raindrop language saying, ThisWayWater, In Here, Lots Of Lovely DryThings of John's To Make Wet.

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The ridge, when greyly glimpsed, has bits too steep for trampers, even Fit hampers who've had a whole two-anda-half-hours' sleep in a super bin. We sidle on the east where there are, according to the map, stunning views of Boulder Lake. We say, when we get home let's read about this trip in Classic Tramps in New Zealand and look at pictures of the stunning views. And in our heads we say quietly, Harriette's DOC man had a point aboutAdelaide Tarn; and Boulder Lake Hut, though invisible, is comfortingly close and more realistically attainable. We do not say this aloud in case Gabriel should hear.

We come to a rock rib too steep to get past, and beyond it in the greyness are a wet Shane and a bedraggled Harriette. We call to them and say, we thought you would be in a realistically attainable hut by now, making scones for us. Shane and Harriette shout back, Good Try. We go down to find a way past the rock rib. We are so busy doing this that we don't notice the rain has eased.

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Gabriel says we shall make a decision at Green Saddle, whether to prove that Haniette's DOC man had a point when he laughed out loud over the phone in Harriette's ear, or whether to go on to Adelaide Tarn in the dark like Real Fit Tongue and Meats. Some of us have already decided. In our heads and hearts we want to have the rest of last night's sleep as well as all of tonight's sleep in Boulder Lake Hut. This idea has germinated and grown during the day, fertilised by superphosphate.

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However, disembodied bits of mountains appear, floating in the cloud. Below, Boulder lake lies under a wispy blanket of fog. The Quartz Range is becoming a good place to be. Stuart says, shall we camp on Green Saddle and save the walk back up in the morning?

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Before dinner we eat camembert and crackers and toffee pops, and start to feel sorry for Ham7, who is having fish and chips. Andrew and Nicola and Tim go down into the wispy fog to find the hut underneath it, and Michael who is

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Everyone falls asleep very ear$. In the morning big jets come over from Wellington on their way to Sydney under a weak sun. This sun is not like the sun in Queensland where I come from, says Michael who is on his first trip with the club. We go along the side of the ridge on a hack, and through a gap called the Needles Eye, and by lunchtime we are atTrident Hutbeside Adelaide Tarn. If we listen carefully in the direction of Takaka we can hear Harriette's DOC man saying, Adelaide Tarn is a long way from the super bin, isn't it? I told you so!

Shane says Harriette was unwell in the night. John, if you are making tea please could you also make some for Harriette, who lost her dinner and ate no breakfast? John makes Harriette her tea and is pleased that Shane asked him to help look after Harriette. Harriette says, thank you John that was wonderful; and John feels a warm glow from tramping with Harriette, who likes tea, and Shane, who appreciates the importance of tea.

Then Gabrielsays ItlsTime To Do ImportantTramping. We are coming to the Dragons Teeth, says Gabriel.

We climb a hillbehind the hut and there arethe Dragons Teeth just as Gabriel said. They are huge and steep, and definitely incisors. They are the sort of teeth to which are attached large reptiles in Jurassic Park.Except, this Park is not Jurassic but Kahurangi National, and dragons don't have incisors or canines or molars. It is a mammalian characteristic, says Haniette, to have different kinds of teeth. Nicola says mammalian or reptilian, nobody has ever been over the Dragons Teeth. They are Grade 23, she says.

John thinks the trip list said Dragons Teeth and as Fit Tongue and Meats we should go there. But the Grade 23

Dragons Teeth look franldy tenifiTing, and John says nothing. Gabrielsays, we shall go down into the Anatokiand climb a spur to Anatoki Peak, back on the ridge beyond the Dragons Teeth. This is the Hard Route which we must do because we are Fits. Shane and Harriette andAndrew and Nicola and Tim, who are not officially part of my trip, can camp in the Anatoki and do the easy route back to the ridge tomorrow. This is allowed because they are Unofficial Transport Onlies and NotTechnically Fits, and Harriette is sick, says Gabriel.

As we start off down the hill into the Anatoki, a tiny girl in running shoes appears. She is 1.3m tall and looks about twelve and carries a miniafure pack. Her Mum and Dad must be coming along behind.

But there is no Mum or Dad. The girl is on her own. She has been in the Kahurangis for four days with no tent or sleeping bag or cooker because they would make her pack heavy. She has no boots because she lost them in a river. She is from California, and she has spent a while in the Yukon, and now she is in New Zealand to study kea and kaka and kakapo. Perhaps she is a little older than twelve. She is going the same way as us, and she has half a cup of muesli to get her to the Cobb. Her name is Jody.

We go down-valley till the altimeters say 820m, then climb a steep spur in bush and tight scratchy scrub, which does not worry us because we are Fits. We come to some tarns. Grant says, this is where Shaun Barnett and Rob Brown camped when they were writing Classic Tramps in New Zealand. I think we should camp here to be in the same place as them.

It rains. Gabriel does wonderful things with couscous and fetta cheese and capsicums. We feed Jody. She is so short she can crawl into herbiwybag headfirst and tum around inside. When she stetches out full length, half the biwy bag is empty. You could fit another whole Jody in there.

In the morning we ask Jody if she slept well and was warm and dry. No, she says, I was cold and wet. I shivered a) .U

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F E all night and did not sleep. But I'm alive! And truly Jody is alive and happy.

We take early photos full of shadows to be like Shaun Bamett. Andrew Chisholm says, the view from here is nearly as good as the view from my house in Brooklyn.

We feed Jody some more and walk around bluffs below Anatoki Peak, following cairns and pressing shutter buttons and taking turns to find the way. Everything is glorious John thinks this tramping in the sunshine is so good he gives Gabriel a cheque in payment for the Ordealby Bus which tookplace aVery LongTime Ago and was Extremel Worth While. Everyone says, we are glad to be on the tops and Gabriel did wellto bring us up the scratchy hillyesterday Jody skips along in front like a puppy. Harriette says afterwards that it looks like the commercial on TV where a girl runs up a hill with a bunch of guys running behind singing "We want our Molenberg". That's what it looks like, says Harriette; Jody in front and nine guys running alongbehind.

Haniette understands about guys and girls. At Lonely Lake we dry our gear in the sun and have lunch and feed Jody some more. Then we walk along the tops and it gets misty and we come to Fenella Hut. The Unofficial Trampers are there already, because they did an easy route which was unsuitable for Fit Trampers like us. It is going to rain tomorrow but we don't mind. Fenella Hut is almost the end. We have done the Dragons Teeth.

Well, strictly we have been around the Dragon's Gums Or somewhere near its mouth.

Next day we are at Trilobite Hut, where the bus is to meet us by twelve. After two hours we have drunk tea and looked at trilobites and finished our crossword puzzle; but there is no bus. Word arrives that the bus is at Cobb Dam, eight kilometres away. Greg who is on his first trip with the club and is fitter than any of us runs and gets back with the bus in time to catch the 9.30pm femT from Picton.

And everyone says thank you Gabriel for a super trip.

Tramping and Mountaineering 2001 /2O02