Pure Corn in the Cobb

NW Nelson,28/6 - 4/7 1981 (Language revised after the First VUWTC Raglan Range Expedition).

This was another of those trips where the weather caved in on us and most of our plans were defeated. On the first day we went straight up to Bushline Hut ,having been dropped off at the bottom of Cobb Reservoir. There were six of us:David Clelland (leader),Terry Patterson,Ronnie Lock,Rob Hunter,Jenny Dixon and Jenny Iles (me). We arrived at the hut just as darkness was falling. Bang,crash. There were odd patches of snow around and it was ultra cold.

The next morning we were going to go on to Diamond Lake to camp out there, but the weather looked totally grotty when we woke up. Snow was swirling around in big flakes and the ridges were covered in untold snow and cloud. We eventually took the plunge,porridged,and ventured out in all our clobber - only eyes showwing through...Total... I had my boots hanging in their traditional position on the back of my pack,due to early blisters,and was wearing my Laser running shoes. They kept my feet nice and warm,much to everyone's surprise,despite the boggy,snow-covered page 40terrain!! After Lake Sylvester we had to traverse a steep slope covered in untold tangled scrub,trees,rock and snow. It was a bit of a battle clambering around with packs catching on everything. At the end of an hour there was still no obvious route to take. At our rate of progress we'd never have made it to a place to camp so we all reluctantly turned around and got blown back more or less the way we'd come. We spread our stuff all over Bushline Hut as if we'd never left.

The next morning fresh snow had fallen,and the tops were still covered in cloud,so we reverted to muesli and took off along the low snow-covered ridge which runs parallel to the Cobb Reservoir and crashed down to lake level via bush and a big gravel slide. From there to Trilobite was untold black-orange bog which got washed off when we crossed the Cobb River. It was thigh deep and totally freezing!!! We camped about an hour up the river (first experience of a Terry-made mac-cheese). We had a good fire over which we burnt several marshmellows,but it exploded when a rock got too hot.

The next day was perfectly calm and clear - that means muesli not porridge,and get up quickly,and David moaning because we're in a valley,not the tops. We warmed our hands on the rocks from the fire,then zipped up to Lake Cobb for lunch leaving our packs at Cobb Hut. Chris Hardiman's group turned up againwhile we were lazing in the sun and talked about climbing something. We zapped back down the track to Fenella Mansion - that's a nice hut if ever there was one. One of Chris' party was sunbathing on the veranda - left there because of bad blisters. From here David,Rob,Ronnie and page 41I went to find 2880. We didn't carry anything but cameras,with the usual result that most of the photos were taken on the one sunny day. We lost the track coming out of bush but eventually ended up on the top where every tramper likes to be!There wasn't much snow. We clowned around a bit then yurtled back down to Fenella at a run. Having two groups in there filled the hut nicely and we got a look at the comparatively gourmet appearance of the other party's diet. We made up for it quite a bit by having 2 delicious Terry-made cheese-cakes - after yet another mac cheese dinner! Pretty soon after hitting pit someone got hungry and started mumbling and,before I knew it,sultanas were catapulting up from the dark below. There was a bit of an uproar for about 15 minutes until we quietened down for 8½ hours.

Unfortunately the beautiful weather of yesterday had turned back into grot. The brekky pog was solid,all but sugarless,and quite inedible. In dramatic contrast, Chris had cooked up the most delectable billy-full of apple and dumplings ever. Outside,the tops were still buried in cloud and gunk. We had to give away going along the ridge we'd seen from 2880 the day before and trundle dejectedly back down the Cobb Valley to Trilobite. Rain had set in and no one felt inclined to visit Lake Peel anymore so we had a drawn out lunch,dried our clothes over the stove,and played cards. Some people got a bit carried away and burnt their socks. Later,the Birthday Girl and her merry troops invaded the hut from Chaffey's,and things were never quite the same again...

There was an incredible creamed birthday cake,an epic song competition,in which we were overwhelmingly defeated,a long song about a "hole in the ground" ably led by Victor Strang,and the dreaded "bang-bang" game (all enquiries to Jenny Dixon). The bunks were jam-packed that night,with slugs of all shapes and colours - the more sensible of us slept outside and avoided getting w ken every hour on the hour. We didn't have anything planned for the next day,so when Chris's group turned up and suggested leaving then and there and spending the night in Nelson,we did just that. Except that we enden up in Richmond instead - that's about the guts of it. Fin.

Of food:

"Without wishing to appear righteous I may say that I was indifferent to what we took so long as it was food and not chemicals,and gave value for weight. That this attitude involved no self-sacrifice I might add that in my opinion all tinned foods tasted the same,and that if we had to take a hundred pounds of tinned meat the proportion of ham,tongue, chicken,roast beef,bully beef,or even sardines was of no consequence. And the same might be said of cereals,of which we had a weird and wonderful assortment of every hue and texture,but which in the end all boiled down to porridge."

H W Tilman,The Ascent of Nanda Devi,1937