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Rees - Dart 7-24th Feb. 1962

After an adventurous get-fit trip and weeks of poring over maps and guide-books, the usual depleted party (three female pikers) set out. We arrived in Queenstown on an overcast Tuesday evening, and set about finding accommodation. We were greeted by an array of smug notices forbidding camping in "any park, street .... or place". Even the motor camp wanted 3/- a head for the privilege of sleeping on their grass.We had almost decided to spend the night on board the deserted "Earnslaw" when we ran into 3 other Vic. trampers who invited the 9 of us to share their two-bed cabin in the motor camp. We crawled over other bodies to take up the allotted square foot of bed—space, after first waiting till dark and then creeping in in twos and threes. In the morning we rose and departed, stealing fairy—footed through the camp and down to the lake.

We left the "Earnslaw" at Glenorchy and took off up the Rees for Twenty Five Mile hut, most of the lower valley is open country, wdth rather boggy flats. We camped below the spectacular Lennox Falls opposite the hut. It was drizzling in the morning, but Bill, Peter, Steve and Kerry set off to climb Mt. Earnslaw, only to be turned back by ice and bad weather. They repeated the performance the following day, while the rest of us picked cherries and waged war with the vilainous chimney in the hut, to which the rain had driven us. On Friday we continued up the valley through bush, scrub and gorges to the open upper valley, where the rocks are pale green and the river a g shrunken muddy trickle, and climbed the steep snowgrass slope to the upper cave beneath the Rees saddle. We spent the night here. A kea woke us at 5 in the morning. We crossed the saddle and sidled down to the Snowy creek, a tributary of the Dart, which we followed to Dart hut. (A very long day - 2 hours' tramping) Next day we went up the Dart to the glacier and climbed to Cascade saddle where we admired the view into the Matukituki far below us. On the way down the Dart to Dredge hut the following day, Kerry shot a goat. That night we contested possession of the hut with the sandflies, and Peter and Jan had a bath in the Dart. Bill tried panning for gold, but without success. Next day we tramped to Paradise, where we collected our food-dump — and some apples. In the morning we forded the Dart, wich we had been led to believe would be a very difficult undertaking — we were most disappointed to cross with nearly-dry pants.

We followed a bush tramline through to the Routeburn, which we followed page break up to the huts, we spent one day sunbathing and the next in going up to the North Col. We left the Routeburn by the Harris Saddle track, from the top of which, in fine weather, one gets a magnificent view of the Darrans. From the saddle, we dropped straight down Deadman’s track to the Hollyford where we camped.

From the Hollyford we went up the most-blazed track in the country: the N.Z,A.C. track up Moraine Creek has a red or orange "disc“ every couple of yards. We slept in and around Moraine Creek hut for a couple of nights, studiously avoiding our chief guide and others who were encamped at the remote end of Lake Adelaide. The best part of the place was the keas, whose most noteworthy action was to attempt to remove Peter’s sleeping bag cover from the bag and Peter, and spill him into the foggy dew. We investigated our end of a route to Homer via Adelaide Saddle and Barrier, but thick mist made it impracticable and we retreated the way we had come, continuing to the Homer huts by road.

The day we arrived, Bill and Les climbed to Homer Saddle while the rest explored the tunnel. Steve and Peter were too impatient to wait for the torches to arrive, so they ventured in with a stub of candle. This soon blew out and they finished the journey in pitch darkness.

Les, Charlie and Mike left by bus for home next morning, missing a party thrown by our neighbours in the other hut in the afternoon. Next day the male half of the party climbed Macpherson while the Ladies' Sewing Guild decorated their menfolk's clothing in a most artistic manner. Later that day we all got lifts into Invercargill and proceeded home in the usual manner.

It was a most successful trip, marred only by spells of bad weather which put climbing out of the question.

L.R.

Party: Bill Stephenson, Steve Reid (leaders) Peter Barry, Les McLachlan, Charlie Page, Kerry Stevens, Mike Heenan, Janice de Lisle, Linda Redmond.