Salient: Victoria University Students' Paper. Vol. 29, No. 3. 1966.
[introduction]
Spotlight On Sports Clubs
The Tramping Club was founded in 1921 under the guidance of Professor Boyd-Wilson. It is still rumoured that on the first outing, the party accidentally burnt their footwear and limped back along the track 15 miles. This tradition has been maintained.
The Tramping Club usually has 50-60 members, although many more students join club trips.
The yearly pattern of activities is under way already. Trips, which leave most weekends, vary from hairy - legged marathons to leisurely trips up river valleys.
Mostly, these trips run into the nearby Tararua ranges or the Orongorongo mountain range.
The climax of the tramping year comes in the Christmas-vacation. for traditionally this is the time when the good keen New Zealander groans visibly and audibly under a 701b pack, and stumbles off into the mountains for anything up to three weeks.
A long trip like this is the true test of tramping ability—organisation, endurance and mountain and bushcraft ability. It is a strange but good feeling to know you will be out of touch with civilisation for some time.
Last Christmas, club parties were in the Olivines. Waimakariri, and Wilkin valleys, with trips to North-west Nelson.