Gourmet Trip

When I arrived at the Hunter car park on Saturday morning there were already about 30 people gathered. They were all lumping large packs filled with equipment. Polypropylene and Gore-Tex, tramping fuel and ice axes, polished chrome eggbeaters, crock-pots, camping ovens, crampons, and heavy GPS equipment. Periodically someone would gather a small group and they would peel off from the main bunch and go down to the gear shed to get some more stuff. I wandered up and said hello to Bernie, who was sitting apart from the others knitting a tea-cozy. He was using plastic knitting needles with holes drilled in them. He was knitting fast and I was surprised at how well the needles held up.

“Can’t have cold tea on Sunday morning.” He said. “You can have some of my tea, if you like.” “Awesome!” I said.

It took a little while for us to organize ourselves into carloads and work out where exactly where we were going. We decided that wherever it was, we were going to meet at Petone Pak ‘n’ Save first and buy plenty of delicious food, and then probably follow Annabelle. Satisfied with that, we jumped in cars and headed again down the motorway out towards the Hutt. When we arrived at the supermarket the people in my car were dismayed to see that Belle’s carload of vegetarians had already gotten themselves a trolley and set about doing the communal shopping. There was nothing to be done but to buy some milk powder and a sneaky tin of Spam for extra protein. When they had finished their trolley tour, however, the ingredients for that night’s dinner were looking pretty good. There was feta cheese and couscous, pesto, capsicums, lettuce and tomatoes and salad dressing. I hung on to my tin of finely ground hoofed-animal body parts only out of interest. I’d never eaten Spam before.

Craig, who had been out this way quite a bit, got some good directions and we set off up over the Rimutaka hill again and out to the Wairarapa. We took a left somewhere before Carterton, down a couple more long straight roads with grass fields and gum trees on either side of them and up into the Waiohine valley. From the base of the valley up to the start of the track was a rough gravel road, with larger rocks scattered across it. There was a nasty drop off the left hand side into a river. Craig and Bernie and I talked about rally driving and I picked my little front-wheel drive Corolla around the corners pretty slowly.

When we arrived at the road end most of the group were already gathered. We took a good while to get our gear together and packed. In addition to the regulation gaiter donning and boot tying there were cast iron pancake skillets to attach to packs, party ice to put into chilly bins, and baby tomatoes and cocktail ingredients to distribute.

Craig and Sam and I headed off first. About 2 minutes from the car park there was a wire bridge over the Waiohine River. We got a good view of the gorge and the river as we crossed. The walls of the gorge were very steep, and lined with stunted beech trees. It was a long drop down from the bridge to the riverbed below.

From the far side of the bridge we had a steep climb, about 1 ˝ to 2 hours up the hill. There was quite an incline, so that there wasn’t much chatter on the way; in fact there was little enough that I can recount it here in its entirety.

Bruce - “F*&king &^%* Sam, this hill is steep”
Sam – “Yer, yer it is pretty steep”
Bruce – “You want to stop for a bit?”
Sam – “Yer, good idea”

Enter ‘Craig’ from below.

Craig – “Hey”
Sam – “Hey”
Bruce – “Hey”
Craig – “Steep hill!”
Sam – “Yer!”
Bruce – “Where are the others?”
Craig – “Down the hill further.”
…

An hour later…

Sam – “I’m hungry.”
Bruce – “Shall we stop here?”
Craig – “Might as well.”

So we stopped near the top for lunch…smoked mussels, Louise slice and sandwiches. There was a breeze coming in through the Beech trees there, and it was pushing a cold mist in. The ground and the leaves were wet, and after a couple of minutes eating we had to dig in our packs for extra wool and polypro. After lunch and on the way down the other side of the hill towards Cone Hut we relaxed and warmed up a bit, jumping tree roots and sliding down the muddy bits. Sam started singing and we joined in, too. The tunes started off pretty well, the ‘Muppets’ theme, and that ‘Sooooome peeeple call me the space cowboy’ ditty, but the selection got worse from there, and it all ended in howls of protest when he started out on the opening tones of ‘Love lift us up where we belong’. Bastard! No! Bastard!

From Cone Hut the track followed the fringe of the Tauherenikau river downstream for about 45 minutes, through bush and over stony grass flats. The light was just starting to dim when Sam smelled woodsmoke, and we figured the hut was close.

We hauled off our wet socks and dumped our packs, and walked through the door into the early stages of dinner preparations. I huddled for protection on a wooden bench with Craig and Bernie. Sam offered to help cutting capsicums. He lasted 30 seconds but cut the capsicum wrong. He was dismissed and sat back down. We lit some candles instead, and after a bit we pulled the ice and the alcohol out of our packs and started mixing drinks. There were a lot of people in the hut, all talking, and with a cocktail in me, a warm body sitting either side of me and a candle on the table I started feeling pretty tired. We ate and kept drinking and started singing again and then there was a good warm hut-haze. The candles made it, and steam from the pots made it, the cold outside made it and the warm crowd finished it and made shifting to a dark, sleeping-bag-rich corner a wonderful idea. I went to play cards on a bunk with Hannah and Heike and Joe and Holly. We laughed and I lost and Heike bit someone and Joe fell asleep, and in the end we all crawled happily back to our sleeping bags.

Next day some of the group walked down the river to the road end at Kaitoke, and the drivers walked back over the hill, picked up their cars and drove round to get them.
Good trip.