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Northern Crossing March 1963

Party: Peter Barry (leader), Roger Lockwood, Warren Thorburn, Phil Laird, Ann Walls, Linda Redmond.

This trip was originally planned to be a Holdsworth-Mitre. Then it was going to be a Bannister Crossing. If you want to know about either of those trips, then don't read this.

We spent the first night at Ohau hut, in company with ten Tararuas and six C.T.C.'s. The latter were also intending to do the Bannister Crossing. The journey in from the Pipe Bridge had been distinguished by one curious exchange:

"Is your foot still dry?"

Which foot?"

"The one in the plastic bag."

All three parties left Ohau at about 7.30 a.m. and headed up the river for South Ohau and Yeates track. At Te Matawai at 10.30 we had our first lunch, then started the long grind up Pukematawai. Half-way up we were alarmed to see that one of the party had stoped at the side of the track and was beginning to unpack. Fortunately the "pinker" was suffering only from hunger pangs, and went like a bomb after refuelling. However Pukematawa and Arete were in mist, and we abandoned the Bannister Crossing in favour of the more familiar Northern route. So we had our number two lunch on Arete bench.

Profiting from previous experience, we turned left automatically at the paddy-field and made for Waiohine Pinnacles and Tarn Ridge hut. There were four deerstalkers in residence on a working party, and when they heard that there were twenty-two trampers coming, they started making noises about what a nice place Arete Forks hut was. None of us was enthusiastic. We preferred to contest the hut-cramming title at Tarn Ridge, and managed to fit twenty in. Outside was a cold wet mist.

Sceptics gaped incradulously as our leader calmly extracted one of his feet from a plastic bag.

Another 7.30 start on Sunday. Girdlestone is particularly unpleasant to climb in the mist - there are so many more false summits. From Brockett we started down Table Ridge, stopped, conferred, and got out a compass. A couple of minutes later we were back on the track, then over Mitre and down into the bush we went, to Mitre Flats for lunch. The T.T.C. party, who had made some kind of detour en route, arrived fairly soon afterward.

Everybody pottered out from Mitre Flats slowly, and we actually had to wait over an hour for the truck.

Note: Tarn Ridge hut has been painted with seakrome (orange) and shows up very well through mist. Dorset Ridge hut has been painted with zinc chromate (yellow). Also the Dorset Ridge turnoff on Girdlestone has been signposted.

L.M.R.