VUWTC '71

Edited by
B.A. SISSONS

Introduction

This is the story of the Victoria University tramping club's first fifty years. It is only one of many possible stories, but while I am very conscious that an abundance of facts and reminiscences have escaped us, our version I trust is at least not unrepresentative.

The first positive action towards a fiftieth anniversary celebration occurred in the middle of 1970. An informal committee was mustered and it made sporadic preparations throughout the rest of the year. Meanwhile, work began. on this publication when the editor visited various past members, gleaning information, and soliciting the articles which appear here under the title 'Five Decades'. Then, in order to give these articles a context, present members were asked to collect material from which they could write about certain other aspects of the club. In the absence of a formal history, for which we lacked both the time and the historian, these sections together with a selection of trip accounts, must suffice to tell our story.

We received technical and financial assistance from the Students' Association, which apart from temporarily financing the printing also made a grant of $50.

In the later stages many people lent a hand. John Thomson, in correspondence with the editor who had by then retreated to Christchurch, helped with the final editing and selection of material. The layout was designed by Simon Arnold, and Noel Sissons took over the increasingly complicated task of liaison. We are indebted to Pam McQueen for the pen drawing on the cover, and also to Margaret Keys who typed much of the copy.

Finally, I should like to thank those members, past and present whose enthusiasm for this jubilee publication has encouraged us all in its production.

B.A. Sissons

Ways and Means in the Home Country

B. A. Sissons

Tramping

Club outings began in the first term of 1921, when Spike records that day trips were run to Red Rocks, Kaukau, Days Bay and the Karori Hills. Outings to such places remain part of the club's activity, which now includes most areas of the Hutt watershed and along the local coastline within its day trip programme. Weekend trips, before the close of 1921, had looked into both the Orongorongos and Tararuas. With the ferry service to Eastbourne, the Orongos soon became the favourite stamping ground. Access across the watersheds of the Gollans and Wainui Valleys made this area ideal for weekend expeditions. The club purchased a share in Tawhai Hut, sited just off the Five Mile Track near Jacob's Ladder, and so gained both a base for longer trips and a comfortable rendezvous for easier weekends of pleasure and discussion.

Adventurous spirits were not to remain satisfied with the Orongorongos alone; the greater extent and height of the Tararuas presented an obvious challenge. The Southern Crossing was an established route by this time and received due attention from the VUCTC. Although the Tararua Survey had been completed in 1873, little of it had been preserved, other than the skeletal map drawn by L. Smith in 1881. Routes to the more remote areas, especially in the north, had to be rediscovered. Prof. Boyd-Wilson and Dr. J.S. Yeates were the first on Mt. Crawford after the surveyors. Crossing into the Otaki Valley from the head of the Waitatapia in January 1925, they re-opened that route.

While the T.T.C. were instrumental in much of this reopening process, many of the VUCTC trips in the early days of the 1920's and '30's were of an exploratory nature. Without the comprehensive map first published in 1936, or the accumulated experience of generations of trampers in the area, it was often a matter of finding the details out for one's self. There were still unexplored pockets in the Tararuas in the early thirties, in the upper basins of rivers such as the Hector and Waiohine.

In the thirties, with a flourishing club and more organisation, came truck transport. In a small club there was generally only one truck hired, and to be economical it had of necessity to be filled. Trucks brought the whole new field of the Northern Tararuas within the scope of weekend trips, but must have restricted planning in many other ways. The club became closely associated with its truck drivers, the Mangin brothers. They were almost honorary members of the club, giving much more than the mere minimal service. Arrangements for second rendezvous points, depending on weather and river conditions, were undertaken, and when parties were late, it was they who formed the first link in the chain of the rudimentary Search and Rescue organisation.

With fewer huts and longer access tracks, winter crossings were more arduous expeditions than now, although large parties did occasionally go through, as, for example, when Geoff Wilson took a party of twenty over the northern crossing in 1931. Due, apparently, to short cycle climatic changes, there was more snow in the earlier decades of this century. Zotov, in a report on Tararua vegetation published by the Royal Society in 1939, states that the tops were in general continuously covered with snow for five months in winter. Skiing in the Tararuas, at Holdsworth and Kime, although no doubt hard work, was common enough, and cutting steps at such places as the Beehives was far from unusual.

By the sixties truck transport was no longer used by 'varsity trampers. Organisation in general has waned, and leadership appears less important. Today smaller parties sometimes bordering on the private, are more common. Train or railcar followed by a taxi to the road-end, followed by a two to four hour walk, constitutes the usual Friday night start. Transport home on Sunday is often by thumb - hitching has become accepted, and, some would say, an art. The flexibility of this rail-taxi-thumb system has allowed for greater variety of weekend trips, and variety has in fact become the essence of the club's Tararua tramping. The Forest Service has placed huts at short intervals along the tops (could Prof. Boyd-Wilson have foreseen three huts on the ridge between him and West Peak when he stood on Crawford in 1925?), marked tracks down most leading spurs, bridged difficult river crossings, signposted the tops and opened up access ways. This, combined with better equipment, better maps, and sadly, less snow in winter, has made formerly difficult crossings more commonplace. With problems of access, routefinding and shelter rapidly disappearing, tramping has developed in several ways. People are attempting much longer weekend and day trips. The Schormann-Kaitoke trip is often completed in a weekend and one day middle and northern crossings have come into vogue. Although no official VUWTC party has completed a Schormann-Kaitoke, middle and northerns have been done. One party went from Vosseler hut via Hector, Neill, Neill Forks, High Ridge, Holdsworth and Girdlestone to sleep on Brockett in an unsuccessful attempt to climb all the 5000ft peaks in a weekend, retreating over Mitre in a nor'wester next day. What have become known as masochist trips are another aspect of modern VUW tramping in the Tararuas. These trips deliberately seek out untracked and unlikely to be tracked areas, often at the scrub level, for example, a direct crossing of Bannister Basin, of a traverse of Tawiri Kohukohu or the Camelbacks. The suffering of course is more exquisite in snow.

Among recent Tararua exponents Nick Whitten figures prominently with such epics as his Pipe Bridge, Waiopehu, Oriwa, Mid Otaki, Kelliher, Nicholls, Waiohine, Shingleslip Knob, Angle Knob Hut, Holdsworth Lodge in three days, with a variety of weather and a fairly large party to his credit. During Queen's Birthday Weekend 1966, Tom Clarkson organised a club effort to visit all known huts in the Tararuas. 41 people in 9 parties visited 47 huts, missing only 8. Carried out in only moderate weather, the scheme was considered a great success by the participants.

Rockclimbing

Keen rockclimbers and many lesser-motivated scramblers make frequent excursions during the year to Titahi Bay and Baring Head. 'The Bay' is more popular, and with its greater variety and height presents more interesting problems than does Baring Head, which nevertheless still provides good practice especially for basic instruction courses.

Since early exponents like C.J. Read showed novices the ropes, the Slab and the Pinnacle have been standard routes. Others such as the Three Sisters and the Baby's Bottom became recognised later. With the recent publication of a Guide Book to Titahi Bay, more climbs have been identified and a greater variety is now being attempted. Finding protection on the typical New Zealand greywacke these has always been a problem although the introduction of new equipment, notably Jam nuts, has helped keep the safety factor up with the standard of climbing.

As in most fields there has been a swing away from the organised trip, with more informal days spent by the sea. Indeed, the stated purpose of rock climbing is often seen to give ground to other pleasures like swimming, sunbathing, lazing and eating. But the trend towards specialisation is also evident, as in everything else.

A variation to rockclimbing which has developed recently is urban night climbing. Popular overseas and long known in Christchurch, it received little attention in Wellington until some of the activities of VUNK (Victoria University Night Climbers Club_) were reported in Heels '69. With innumerable possibilities from a Girdle Traverse of Parliament Buildings to a dirretissima on the Carillon, and added difficulties in possible brushes with the law, this shadowy sport has many attractions. It is a sport, however, which has yet to be, as you might say, officially recognised.

Further Afield

Christmas Trips

B.A. Sissons

Christmas trips are almost as old as the club. The first set out for National Park in the summer of 1923-4, and they have been run every year since with the single exception of 1942. The pattern for trips remained fixed until the end of the forties. A sub-committee would be formed during the year to decide on the area to be visited, and to organise transport, gear and food. Planning was detailed and meticulous. Accounts were kept and schedules issued to all participants. After the forties there was a change to smaller and more informal trips, the tramping was more commonly to less frequented valleys, and the climbing, especially in recent years, considerably more ambitious. But of course, what is now well known was often virtually unexplored fifty years ago, and climbs are easier when others are known to have been up before you.

The first recorded Christmas trip was in 1923. It was in the nature of a holiday, at Tongariro National Park and Taupo. 'Ruapehu was climbed', Spike reported, 'and all the lesser mountains.' There was a lengthy stay at Tokaanu, and a visit to Wairakei'. More difficult tramping followed when S.A. Wiren led the next two trips into the Urewera. Both parties set out from Waikaremoana, the first coming out at Waiotapu and the second following down the flooded Whakatane River. It was little-known country then, but offered fine tramping, and unlike most back-country, had some notable historic associations, especially with Te Kooti and the Prophet Rua to recommend it. The first club trip to go south left for the Waimakariri in January 1926. Wiren was keen to sort out several cartographical problems which Carrington had not yet solved when he was drowned. With Carrington's own map he was able to propose several names for peaks and passes in the area, many of which have been adopted, but his only climb was up the still unnamed peak on the main divide near Mt. Armstrong. Then, after a visit to N.W. Nelson and ascents of Arthur and Paul, there were three further trips to National Park, by the end of which few areas within or around the park were unvisited, or peaks unclimbed. These early trips, although the parties often ran to twenty or so, were usually filled by invitation - a system analogous to the present one, but imposed, one guesses, because of the attractive ease rather than the difficulty of the expeditions.

In the 1930's, however, trips were open to all who thought themselves sufficiently fit. This had an immediate effect upon the club: numbers soared and trips were often planned to include a base camp. The Spensers were first visited in 1930. From the head of Lake Rotoroa, Misery was climbed, and the E. Sabine explored to the lakes at the head. The party then retreated to the comforts of a cottage at St. Arnaud. This area, owing to its accessibility, its easy travelling and its pleasant beauty became the one most frequently seen by the club in the next three decades. The following year, two trips were run. The first, to the Dee branch of the Clarence, was made notable by Boyd-Wilson's building a canoe; the other party walked from the Franz Joseph Glacier over Haast Pass to Wanaka, with pack horses to carry gear and help in crossing the rivers. The Otira trip of 1932 managed, in spite of bad weather, to climb Baron and the low peak of Rolleston. At the same time, Boyd-Wilson led some tramping of an unusual kind. After what Spike describes as a strenuous few days at National Park, the party crossed Lake Taupo by launch and during the next few days followed the main trunk line north through the King Country to Pukemako. The second Spensers trip followed in 1933. From a base camp established on the Rainbow branch of the Wairau, a sub-party completed a round trip through the Travers and Sabine headwaters and then everyone went down the Clarence and out to Hanmer. F. Eggars led the other 1933 trip of thirty people, who for ten days boated, fished and tramped around Tuna Bay in Pelorous Sound.

Venturing further south in 1934, D. Viggers led a party to the upper Hollyford. After seeing the views from Gertrude Saddle and Key Summit, the party crossed to the Routeburn and Lake Wakatipu. Next year he took people to the Waimakariri and the Wilberforce. Another 1935 party, having camped for several days in the Waipakihi River in the Kaimanawas, crossed the Desert Road to Waihohonu Hut, picking up food on the way and in the following days climbed Ngauruhoe and to the crater on Ruapehu. In 1936 from a base camp in the lower Travers valley climbs were completed on the Camel and Mt. Travers, and attempts were made on Little Twin and Mt. Hopeless. On these base camp trips large amounts of gear were taken - the tents in particular were heavy - and from this particular trip there is a photograph showing a game of teniquoits in progress, which is an indication of the mixed objectives of the large party. Base camp was in fact the base for a wide variety of holiday activities. A successful Arthur's Pass trip followed in 1937. Spike recorded fifteen peaks were climbed and the first known traverse of Falling Mt. from Tarn Col was achieved. Among the fifteen peaks were Rolleston and those of the Polar Range. From Lewis Pass the 1938 party traversed Cannibal Gorge and put a base camp in the Waiau River. Mts Lucretia, Technical and Travatone were climbed in various amounts of cloud and at the end of the trip the party sampled the pleasures of the hot spring at Maruia. Two trips to the Waimak followed, a Three Pass trip in 1939 and a base camp trip to the White confluence in 1940. On the latter trip, in addition to a traverse of the Shaler Range, a large party climbed Mt. A.P. Harper.

In 1934 when there was often little to distinguish TTC and VUCTC trips a mixed party made several climbs in the Godley. This interest in climbing, though it slackened a little through the thirties underwent a resurgence in the early forties, prompted especially by the enthusiasm of J.B. Butchers. In 1941 Butchers and R. Collin led another successful Godley trip. From Godley Hut the party proceeded to a camp up glacier with skis and biscuit tin sledges. Large parties climbed Mts Gordon and Wolsely. With decreased activity in the next few years due to the war there was no trip in 1942 but in 1943 M. Benge led a trip to the Cobb Valley in Nelson and A.O. McLeod led a Waimakariri trip in 1944. The next large trip followed in 1945 when Butchers led another climbing trip, this time to the Wilkin, when many climbs were made, some of them new.

There were two trips in 1946. John McCreary led a Waimak-Anticrow-White-Bealy trip, pictures of which show the party in deep snow at the head of the White. Bad weather prevented the projected Three Pass trip. The other trip went to the Hopkins valley and coincided with an NZAC meet there. Members of the party made climbs from the head of the valley, for example Prudence Peak, and also from the Huxley and Elcho sidestreams. On New Years Day 1947 the whole party set out to make a crossing of the Neumann Range. At 11.00am, just after lunch on the crest of the range, eleven of the party of nineteen were involved in a wet snow slide. S. Allaway and R. Dickson were killed and three others seriously injured. Soon after contact had been made with the Glen Lynn homestead 25 miles down the Dobson, a large rescue operation was mounted. This was safely completed when the injured were brought out on a truck which had been driven to the head of the valley. The trend to larger parties reached a climax in 1947 when Butchers led a party of 38 into the Spensers. The minds of present day members boggle at the organisational difficulties alone. Such a large party was bound to fragment, some preferred to stay around the camp while others climbed the surrounding hills. Eventually a through party left over Travers Saddle bound for Lewis Pass while the remainder returned to St. Arnaud. 1948 saw the club return to the Spensers. Ron Ellis led a some what smaller party up the Matakitaki River valley. Rain prevented a projected crossing to the Waiau but the party managed to repeat the previous year's climb of Faerie Queene and add ascents of Malling and Humboldt before returning down valley. Terry Qualter engineered an intricate double Dart-Rees trip in 1949. One party made a side trip up the Greenstone at the start to allow the second party time to get ahead and hopefully get some climbing in. Both parties eventually crossed Snowy Saddle and followed the Rees out to Glenorchy, having climbed Cleft and Cunningham.

Although private trips had been run since the thirties they were not very numerous. However, in the fifties private trips became more common, and by the late sixties they took so predominant a part that the official club Christmas Trip faded in significance. Only a few of these many trips can here be mentioned.

Christmas 1950-51 marks the first Olivine trip run by the club. The route was from the Routeburn to the Olivine, the Pyke, to Big Bay and the Hollyford. Since then Olivine trips have been run in 1952, '56, '59, '62, '66, and '70, so that the region has been frequented by the club almost as much as the more accessible and easier areas of Arthur's Pass and the Spensers. Most of the valleys surrounding the Olivine Ice Plateau have been visited and only the Northern Olivine Range remains relatively unexplored by the club. The Spensers have retained their popularity with at least eight Christmas visits over the same period, the St. Arnaud-Lewis Pass through trip being the most popular. In recent years this area has also come in for more attention during the shorter holidays.

In 1956 and 1957 two Godley trips were run. Both parties made climbs in the Godley before crossing Classen and Tasman Saddles to the Tasman Glacier and the Hermitage. In 1962 Bill Stephenson led a party up the Huxley. From a camp on Brodrick Pass ascents were made of Mc Kenzie and Strauchan in spells between the bad weather before the party dropped down the Landsborough via McKenzie Creek. Three days travel up the valley brought them to the Spence Junction and they then crossed to the Mueller via the screes under Spence and the narrow divide from just north of Spence over Scissors to Baron Saddle. Tom Clarkson, Neil Whitehead and Don Fraser went up the Rakaia in January 1967. They had five ‘almost continuously rainy’ days before crossing the Rakaia by the bridge near Meins Knob over Strachan Pass to a morraine camp just below the snout of the Lord Glacier. In murky weather next day they spent thirteen hours traversing four mi les of Lambert Gorge to the confluence with the Wanganui.

In 1968 two former members of the club, George Caddie and Arnie Allan, joined Keith Jones and Phil Burgess on a highly successful trip. Their route from Erewhon was up the Clyde to the Garden of Eden, down to the Perth, then into the Godley via Sealy Pass, over Pyramus to the Havelock and so back to Erewhon. In almost two weeks of fine weather they had time to climb Guardian Peak, Tyndall, Newton, and Farrar from the Garden and D 'Archiac from the Godley. Another largely fine weather trip was completed in 1969 by Bryan Sissons, Lesley Bagnall, Noel Sissons and John Keys. They crossed the Copland Pass to Douglas Rock Hut and from there after a rest day they pushed up Bluewater Creek to Scott Basin and Welcome Pass on the fifth day. A snow cave was put in and Sefton, Scott, Blizzard and Pioneer climbed before the party went down the Wicks to the Douglas Basin and Harper's Bivvy. A quick trip over Douglas Pass and a crossing from the Spence to the Mueller using the same route as Stephenson's 1962 party, but in a gathering nor'wester brought them to Three Johns for a short enforced sojourn before their departure down the Mueller.

This selection of Christmas trips made since 1950 hardly suggests the number of parties nor the variety of their objectives, but will, perhaps, give an idea of what today’s smaller groups can achieve.

See Appendix for list of major trips 1921-71.

Climbing

Christmas trips, by taking trampers to the more remote and higher mountains, have from the earliest times stimulated an interest in climbing. In the later twenties, parties frequently went to Tongariro National Park in the summer, when several ascents were made. The Kaikouras also attracted climbers, and in 1926 S.A. Wiren and others had got to the top of the main divide peak near Armstrong in the Waimakariri.

Generally, until after the war, there were few private climbing parties and most climbing was done by subsidiary groups from the base camps on Christmas trips. In the fifties and sixties, many more parties have set out specifically to climb; in fact they have been so numerous that one can only suggest the wider scope and often fine success of these efforts. And it is also in the nature of things that the more notable work has often been done on private trips and by members whose age has made their association with the club a little tenuous.

However, in the thirties the club did have its representatives in the exploratory kind of tramping and climbing associated with the name of J . D . Pascoe, when you often not only climbed your peak but named it too. S.A. Wiren with other N.Z.A.C. men in 1931 climbed for the first time Westland, Warrior, Amazon and Blair. Wiren, though no longer a student then, had been prominent in the club just a year or two before. Then, from the Clarke Glacier early in 1934, W.H. and R.J. Scott crossed Strachan Pass, skirted Mt. Lord and traversed the Lord Range to the Wilberg Glacier and made the first ascent of Dan Peak. Arriving on that isolated mountain at 4.30pm they spent a night out near Mt. Lord before returning to the Clarke. P.S. Powell, A.H. Scotney and J. Croxton were next in the field. In 1939 they pushed up the Perth Valley and from a camp above the bushline climbed the virgin Great Unknown, returning the next day for the view they had missed on the first. A similar kind of trip, depending on hard packing, was made in 1955 by D. Somerset, D. Millward, M. Rogers and T. Carter. After a few days climbing from French Ridge Bivvy they crossed over the Bonar and successfully prospected a route to the Waipara Valley floor, via a spur on the left of Fireman Creek. From there they found a new route on Eros, carrying full packs most of the way and weathering two days of nor'wester near the summit before going out over the Matukituki Saddle.

Over the same period the club was also active in the more accessible eastern valleys and mountains. In 1934 C.J. Read with his brother and guide Kurt Suter had a successful season in the Tasman, making the first traverse of Walter and collecting many other peaks including Green, Elie de Beaumont, the Minarets and Cook. The following year, W. H. Scott, Read, R. F. Kean, F. Newcombe and others were in the Godley. Various members of the large party recorded ascents of Moffat Malthus, McClure, Dennistoun and Wolseley, completed the first traverse of Victoire and pioneered the Trident route on D 'Archiac.

On the 1940 Christmas trip to the Waimakariri J. Witten-Hannah, J.B. Butchers and J. Gillies, climbing from the White confluence, made the first traverse of the Shaler Range, bivvying out one night on the ridge. But probably the 1945 Christmas in the Wilkin, when the club combi ned with an OSONZAC meet, was the best example of what could be done by climbers working from a trampers' base camp. R. Oliver, R. Jackson and F. Evison made the first ascent of Mt. Kuri, climbing from the Wonderland valley; others climbed Aeolus, Arne, Pollux, Lois and Turner, and A.J. McLeod completed the first climb of Ragan since the time when Charlie Douglas had reached the low peak in 1891.

In the 1950-51 season R. Ellis, S. Jenkins, R. Knox, J. Ardley and S. Martin were in the Franz Joseph. From a snow cave at Mackay rocks they climbed De la Beche and the Minarets before crossing Graham Saddle to the Tasman. A rather interesting trip organised by Ellis in 1955 had as its main objective Mt. Balloon in the Milford Track area. The climb, the third ascent, was completed by Ellis with G. Gerrard and E. Offner. Later on the same trip Offner and Ellis with Jacky Ellis climbed the west peak of Earnslaw by traversing the east. A couple of successful climbing trips have also been run in the Hopkins Valley. In 1955 D. Somerset and Offner climbed Hopkins, then from a camp near Elcho Col. Somerset and J. Thomson climbed Ward while Offner and E. Masters climbed Jackson and two days later each pair climbed the other peak. In 1960-61 a party climbed Ward, Dazzler Pinnacle and a peak, probably Armature on the Neumann Range.

With the changing interests of later years, club members have gravitated increasingly to the two present centres of N.Z. climbing: Mt. Cook and the Darrans; although some people have also been attracted to other areas, notably the Rakaia, the Arrowsmiths and the Armoury Range. Parties have in general become smaller and more exclusively concerned with climbing as opposed to combined climbing and transalpine work. In the period 1960-62 I.D. Cave and J.G. Nicholls with M. Gill and P. Houghton of Otago University completed an outstanding series of new climbs in the Rakaia, the Tasman and in the Darrans. Ian Cave writes about these in a later section. In 1963 P. Barry with W. R. Stephenson put in a variation of the Marian route on Sabre. Four V.U.W.T.C. members - R. Gooder, P. Radcliffe, C. Bolt and N. Eggars had a successful 1968-69 season in the Tasman, all climbing Malte Brun and the west ridge of the Aiguilles Rouges. Gooder and Radcliffe climbed the south ridge of Green. The following year, Gooder, with J. Wild, made the second ascent of the south ridge of La Perouse and a Grand Traverse of Cook. In the excellent 1970-71 season at Mt. Cook, J. Keys, K. Jones and C. Timms climbed the Pioneer Ridge of Douglas and made the second ascent of the west ridge of Haidinger. Ross Gooder, climbing with a Canterbury climber, J. Stanton, made a direct ascent of the east face of Sefton and also completed climbs of the south face of Hicks and the Sheila face of Cook, with C. Fraser.

Obviously, these last few climbs were not made on club trips. But the club has become, as far as mountaineering is concerned, not an organisation which takes people climbing, but one which provides the facilities for individuals to meet and plan their own trips. And the success with which it carried out this function is amply proved by the outstanding work of recent years.

Mid-Year trips

Winter, despite the cold and the short daylight hours, has its attractions and draws more trampers and climbers into the mountains than ever before. In most areas, that much-prized sense of isolation can still be counted upon, whereas in summer the numbers in many valleys produce a kind of village life. And winter changes the mountains in many unexpected ways, rendering them strangely beautiful under their heavy snow.

In the early years, the skiers ran a continuous series of August trips to Arthur's Pass, Tongariro National Park and Egmont. These ended about 1947 when a separate Ski Club was formed, but the club mountaineers continued to go to Egmont and Ruapehu, not only in August but for weekends at any time throughout the winter. For in winter these mountains can give excellent practice in snow and sometimes in ice work; they have therefore been the scene of many alpine instruction courses. Some routes, such as the southern face of Te Heu Heu and the crater face of Tahurangi have in recent years given more experienced members a tussle.

Winter trips to the South Island have also increased recently. The Spensers have been an obvious choice, but climbers have also found that several of the more accessible Canterbury ranges, such as the Armoury Range and the Arrowsmiths, give excellent climbing in the often settled August weather. In fact trampers rather than climbers find the difficulties greatly increased in winter. A climber may still choose clear rock, but a tramper is almost certain to be faced with upper basins choked with snow. In August 1970 a club party completed a Three Pass Trip, but they had steep snow instead of scree and had to break through a cornice to get on to Browning Pass.

Easter was always the other main opportunity for a longer trip. Kapiti was once a favourite spot, and longer trips were made in the Tararuas. But in more affluent times, and with more private transport, pre-varsity trips, May holidays, Study Week and post-finals trips have made their almost regular appearances. The club has visited the Ruahines often, and much has been seen of the Kawekas and Kaimanawas also, access to the latter being improved by roads for the Tongariro Power Scheme. There are very few records of trips further north (apart from the Urewera), although in 1970 an ascent of Mt. Hikurangi was made at Easter, and the area has since raised some interest. But its isolation - nearly 400 miles from Wellington - is likely to preserve its peace, despite its reputation for primeval forest, very hard going and reputedly virgin peaks.

The days of the regular Christmas, Easter and August trips have gone. People go into the hills when it suits best and when the weather seems right. And this is sensible. The mountains may always be there, but a student's life is brief; and he has learned to make the most of it.

Outward and Visible Signs

General

B. A. Sissons

MANPOWER

The size of the club has always been difficult to assess, but it would never have exceeded a hundred active members at any given time. A list of 169 names was compiled in 1966, but this included many immediate past members and peripheral trampers. Active membership grew throughout the twenties and thirties to about 60 or 70 by the end of the second decade and with the return of many after the war, soon reached a peak of around 80. In 1947 the skiers, who in the preceding twelve or so years had become an increasingly active and identifiable group, left to form their own club. In the following years membership dropped, to stabilise at about 40, where it has remained since.

TALK

Activities have never been confined merely to tramping or climbing and the first club report in Spike, June 1922, gave notice of this: "Commencing operations only at the beginning of 1921, the Tramping Club has already become an institution recognized amongst the more venerable of college clubs. Freer than the Free Discussion Club, more gleeful than the Glee Club, and - shall we say it - Draughtier than the Draughts Club, it has found a place in college life." Discussion was fostered by shorter trips and large parties, and topics ranged from the finer points of equipment to more august questions of politics and literature.

Politics have been one of the main interests of club members and in a university tinged with more than a hint of red, the tramping club has been one of the more leftward leaning institutions. Rumours persist of jobs lost or jeopardised for political beliefs. After the war, with the return of an older, more experienced and perhaps disillusioned group, the Socialism and Marxism of the twenties and thirties turned here and there to active communism. For a time in the early fifties the Socialist Club was almost encompassed by the Tramping Club. But in the later fifties, politics were no longer a live issue, and in the sixties with smaller parties and proclivity toward less talking and more tramping, discussion in general became less important.

SONG

Songs have always been sung. In the thirties, writers such as Tom Birks, Ron Meek and Paul Powell produced a variety of tramping and other songs. A partiality to Gilbert and Sullivan, especially for Extravs, is evident. Harold Gretton followed with a magnificent collection, and some of his songs such as 'No more Double-bunking' are still in vogue. In the fifties folk music with some straight tramping songs was the thing, though one Spanish Civil War song persisted; but during the sixties, no doubt to the horror of some former members, contemporaries have taken to pop music, mixed with folk, and, as ever, ordinary tramping songs and bawdy songs. Wit has of course been a standard for judging songs, and sometimes the beauty of the tunes, but it should be recorded that bawdiness has always abounded and at times appeared to dominate.

TOWN HAUNTS

With a lack of a permanent headquarters, a discontinuous year's activities, and a short span of membership (averaging about four years per person) there is a problem of continuity in the club. In response to this, informal headquarters have tended to develop on occasions. In the fifties the Somerset house in Kelburn Parade was the centre for activities for about eight years. Recently, after a few years in the wilderness, the club has settled once again, this time in a flat at 143 Dixon St. These unofficial headquarters are a mixed blessing. They are more hospitable than the stark Students' Union and there will usually be someone round to talk to but they encourage a cliquishness which has at times detracted from the club as a club. Informal lunch meetings, which began a few years ago, but have become irregular since, almost invariably took place on fine, warm days in the graveyard beside the Students' Union, and did at least help to give the club an identity.

THE WRITTEN WORD

Trampers have always had a tendency to record impressions of their trips, thoughts about the hills, and so on. Records of the club appear from the Spike of June 1922 onwards. The coverage, especially in the thirties, was quite comprehensive including trip accounts and summaries of the year's activities. Smad followed by Salient contained a few articles - one of note in Salient told the story of the misadventures of Robin Oliver and Jim Witten-Hannah when they camped in the crater of Ruapehu during the 1945 eruption. In 1947 the first of what has been a continuous series of publications appeared. Containing news and trip accounts, this newsletter was published three times a year until it became, in 1952, the annual Heels. Cyclostyled and often difficult to read it does however contain a wealth of information. In 1968 a new-look Heels printed offset and including photos, was instituted by the editor of that year, Pete Radcliffe. This style of production has been maintained.

SKIING

From the mid-thirties to the late forties there was a continuous series of August trips to either Ruapehu, Egmont or Arthur's Pass. These were predominantly skiing trips. During that time a strong skiing section developed in the club, until in 1946 a separate ski captain was appointed. In 1947 a separate ski club was formed. Skiing in the thirties and forties was not quite the big business than it is today. At Ruapehu, 'varsity parties used to stay in now-demolished huts behind the Chateau. Tales of illicit use of the Chateau's facilities, with entry via the coal bunkers, and evenings spent dancing amongst Chateau guests, have been related with glee. And the skiing was good too. There was more snow, and people used to walk up from the Chateau, and often could spend the day skiing in places where today lack of snow would make it impossible. At the end of the day, one could even occasionally ski down the Bruce most of the way to the Chateau.

Skiing at Kime and on Holdsworth in the thirties was also common and inter-club championships were held in the Tararuas. Such activity would probably not be possible with today's small snowfall.

At all events, the skiers left. And, whether it is a coincidence or not, the character of the club changed in the following few years. In the early fifties the trend to smaller parties and in general probably a less social atmosphere pervaded except perhaps at bashes.

MORE HONOURED IN THE BREACH? NEVER!

Bashes, or more explicitly alcoholic weekends, started in the late thirties or early forties. The club photo album contains pictures of the famed 'Mulled Wine' reunion in 1942 when festivities were no doubt aided by Prof. Boyd-Wilson's acknowledged abilities in the field of wines and brewing. In the fifties bashes were brought to regularity - two a year, one at Queen's Birthday, and one after finals, both at A - D. Lately the after finals bash has disappeared, too many people leaving Wellington as soon as possible after exams, often on post-finals trips; and the Queen's Birthday one has been transferred to the mid-year break. Memories of these occasions, though colourful, are imprecise, but the pattern as far as can be ascertained has remained much the same. Scenes of great labour on the A - D track on Saturday morning are followed by great excesses in the evening, after which people may retire to the flats to sleep before heading home on Sunday.

Fashion

Tawhai

Tricia Healy

In 1932 a Lower Hutt builder received a wage increase - an extra 2 pound ten shillings to be added to his weekly 12/6 wage which he was receiving from the government. This generous wage was paid to him by Geoff Wilson, Mary (his wife), W. E. Davidson and A.J. Hilkie for his undertaking to build them a hut in the Orongorongos.

Unfortunately, no doubt, for him financially, the hut took only two weeks to build. Built of red beech slabs, the hut had a tin roof, a clay floor, was 11ft. x 12ft. and accommodated eleven (in five sacking bunks).

Tawhai, as the hut was called - named for its position amongst the beech trees and after Geoff Wilson's pen name - was situated on a terrace 80ft. above and on the true right of the Orongorongo River, just downstream from the end of the Five Mile track.

Built as a winter retreat (the Tararuas often being out at that time because of bad conditions), Tawhai had to meet certain requisites imposed by its owners. It had to be reasonably close to Eastbourne - one always walked to Tawhai from Eastbourne (although the Wainui Road was there, student-owned vehicles were unheard of in the 30's). It also had to be on the Eastbourne side of the river, where it would be free from the threat of winter floods, mosquito-free and a trap for whatever winter sun was shining.

The site the owners chose fulfilled all the above conditions, this being more important to them than the fact that it was disadvantageously situated 80ft. above any water. This last factor was largely overcome by a big kerosene tin hidden nearby, which, when filled once, supplied the hut for an evening. For those unfortunates ignorant of the tin's existence, or, if aware, ignorant of its whereabouts, it was a case of much energy and much breathwasting cursing being expended on grinding up and down to the river to collect a billyful at a time.

The usual method of getting to Tawhai was by catching a ferry to Eastbourne and walking to the hut from there. Of course if you lived at Eastbourne, as did many early club members, you just started walking. Either way you tramped over the Gollans Valley farmland into Wainui-o-mata, then over into the Catchpole and up the Five Mile track. From near the end of this you carried on down a small stream about 5 minutes before Jacob's Ladder. This stream has a steep bank on its southern side which you climbed 80ft. up to a terrace where was found Tawhai Hut.

In the 1930's, when Tawhai was built, a large number of students were part-timers, working Saturday mornings, which made full weekend trips an impossibility. Full-time students usually waited for their less fortunate friends, so most trips to Tawhai (and elsewhere) would have begun some time on Saturday afternoon. This perhaps explains the note found in an old copy of Heels: '...Tawhai where you can spend idyllic weekends swimming, eating, sunbathing and debating!'

Such occupations are supposedly foreign to today's tramper with much more tramping time available at the weekends and more recovery time available during the week, but to a student of the 30's these things would have seemed most sensible. Students had to combine university work with five and a half days employment and were given little time off for study and lectures. A tramper would have arrived at Tawhai late Saturday night or early Sunday morning, knowing if he went much further he'd be arriving home early Monday morning, feeling oh so like five and a half days' work. Many, in spite of this, did arrive home early on Monday morning, sometimes just in time for work, after having spent hours tramping over to the Wairarapa and back on the Sunday, or if they were less fit after hours of sliding round amongst the shingle and goats of the Mukamuka Valley.

1934 saw all the other Wellington clubs at work building their own huts - up till this time all hut-building had been carried out by the more affluent and longer established Tararua Tramping Club. Varsity, somewhat envious of all the other clubs with their new huts, and unable to build one itself on the grant of 3 pounds a year from the Students' Association, instead asked the owners of Tawhai Hut, who were all either ex-students of Victoria or associates of the club and its members, if they could buy a two-fifths share in their hut. This was finally agreed to and a formal agreement was drawn up whereby varsity could use the hut for twelve official trips a year. This agreement, the owners felt, was quite unnecessary for in actual fact the students were free to use it whenever they wished as had been the case before 1934. As a donation to the club Geoff Wilson paid the annual City Council fee of 1 pound and in return the club carried out maintenance work on the hut.

This somewhat haphazard situation and arrangement continued on through the thirties and war years, by the end of which both parties were beginning to lose interest in the hut. Geoff and Mary Wilson, the mainstay of the original owners, had moved to Auckland and consequently they were rather infrequent visitors to the hut, which was by now badly in need of repair. The other two original owners, W.D. Davidson and A.S. Hilkie were also infrequent visitors and 'varsity now had a new object of status to dream over and work upon: their own hut, Allaway-Dickson in the Tauherenikau. No longer interested in Tawhai unless they could own it completely, 'varsity wrote to Geoff and Mary in 1947, asking them if they would sell. The Wilsons were unwilling at that time, wanting to keep a share to pass on to their children, and with the building of Allaway-Dickson in 1948 and its subsequent completion in 1949, 'varsity, not unnaturally, somewhat neglected Tawhai.

In 1952 a student sub-committee investigated the possibility of repairing it. This was soon found to be impossible, its state being too decrepit, and they decided fund-raising for a completely new hut would have to be carried out. A new site, downstream and nearer water, was suggested, thus leaving the original owners with their 'hut' on its old site. Lack of funds prevented this occurring and by 1954, 'varsity, W.E. Davidson, and A.J. Hilkie had lost all interest in having a hut in the Orongorongos. This left the Wilsons, still in Auckland, in sole command of their by now derelect hut. In 1959 they wrote to the city engineer, asking him if he would transfer the site and licence to some reliable tramper. This was acceptable to him, but the new owner could not have been very enthusiastic for Tawhai was never rebuilt. Today, if one were to meet a person returning from Tawhai he would tell a tale similar to that of Shelley's traveller in his poem 'Ozymandias'. He would tell of the few old logs and bits or iron that still mark the spot, but would have to conclude, 'Nothing beside remains.'

Allaway-Dickson

K.B.Popplewell

After the tragic death of Stanley Allaway and Roy Dickson in the Hopkins Valley early in 1947, thought was given to the provision of a suitable memorial. The initial plan, a plaque in the Elcho Hut, was soon dropped in favour of a hut in the Tararuas. This seemed particularly appropriate as for some time such a hut had been mooted. It was to be the club's first hut, apart from a share in Tawhai Hut in the Orongorongos.

The best site for such a hut appeared to be somewhere in the Tauherenikau Valley between the Tararua Tramping Club's Tauherenikau Hut (the "Chateau") and Cone Hut, and preferably near the bottom of the Reeves and Block XVI tracks. Two main sites were considered, the present site and one a short distance upstream on the other side of the river. After discussion with other clubs, and despite some opposition, the present site was chosen, mainly because of its proximity to the bottom of Block XVI track, its freedom from danger of erosion, and the presence nearby of a stream which was thought never to dry up. The fact that the site was a reasonable Friday evening's tramp from Kaitoke and was directly above the main ford of the Tauherenikau also influenced the choice. A club member (unnamed) offered to lay a bitumen floor to overcome the problem of the boggy site, but nothing came of this somewhat improbable scheme.

In the first few weeks of 1948 the site was cleared and levelled, and drainage ditches were dug and filled with stones. By Easter construction had started, with timber for the main framework being cut out of the bush. By August the hut was a roof-less skeleton and sufficient timber had been carried in to sark the roof and board up part of one side. Finals were now drawing near, however, and no more work was done until the end of the year. Then, during the Christmas and New Year holidays, the roof was sarked, the Maori bunk started, and the first fire-place built. Unfortunately, the gravel for the concrete was insufficiently washed and the fire-place very soon collapsed and had to be rebuilt.

Back-packing of timber and other materials to the hut site had been going on for some time but a concerted effort to complete the carrying was launched on Anniversary weekend 1949. Harry Evison and Pip Piper devised an ingenious method of modifying packs to carry long lengths of timber. This consisted of pack-frames fitted with a three foot cross-piece of 2" by 1 ½" wood nailed or lashed to the bottom bar. Two people wearing these modified packs stood one behind the other about six feet apart, and three boards were placed on the projecting cross-pieces on each side of their bodies. It is reported that it then only required a man with a whip to set the whole machine in motion. Carrying was done in stages and dumps were positioned at both sides of the Puffer, at the Smith's Creek crossing, at Marchant Stream, and finally at the hut site itself. Everything went comparatively smoothly once the system was worked out, apart from minor mishaps such as a creosote tin springing a leak in Peter Jenkins' pack (sleeping the following night in his creosote soaked sleeping bag completely cured his influenza), and Peter Jenkins and Jack Liversage having to chase wind-borne sheets of corrugated aluminium half way to Masterton and half way up the Marchant Ridge respectively.

On 18 February 1949, in the pouring rain, the west side of the hut was covered in and provided shelter while meals were cooked in the half-completed fire-place (number two). Meanwhile, all the piles had been placed and Bill Lee and Jack Gibson were doing a fine job inserting floor joists with a faulty level. In late March, after several weeks delay due to bad weather, the roof finally went on, and by the end of March the hut consisted of two and a half sides, a roof and half a floor.

Finishing work (such as battens, windows and floor boards) continued steadily until, at about 4.00pm on 30 April 1949, the second fire-place was finally finished and the hut was formally opened by Bonk Scotney in the presence of about sixty-five people. The opening ceremony was followed by spirited celebrations, perpetuated as the annual 'Hut Birthday'. Though it has been a somewhat movable feast, it is nowadays generally held early in the second term.

A-D has survived twenty-two years of Tararua weather, but is no longer getting the care from trampers that an elderly and lightly-built hut deserves. True, several generations of 'varsity trampers have carried out maintenance over the years. The place was completely repiled in 1959-60, a new floor was laid in 1968 (gone is that beautiful rough-hewn floor in front of the fire), and the fire-place itself was rebuilt for the third time in 1970. But for all this it has become increasingly obvious that the hut is no longer standing up to the wear and tear of constant, heavy - and careless - use. To provide something better able to survive the onslaughts of modern trampers, the Forest Service plans to build a new hut a little further up river, when (though a reprieve is possible) they say the old hut will have to go. With it would go what for more than twenty years has been the club's largest undertaking and accomplishment; and the dream of those whose enthusiasm first got the building under way would once again exist only in the memory.

Cone Bridge

G.Caddie

In the May vacation of 1958 Bryce Evans and David Patterson perished in a blizzard on Mt. Hector. By June 1960 the bridge at Cone Hut had been built as a memorial to these two club members. Because, more than a decade ago in the enthusiasm of youth, I agreed to design the bridge, the present generation seemed to think I was well qualified to relate its history. From the rush that is upon me now because of a facile agreement to the editor's request I feel I must be still just as rashly enthusiastic now, as then.

Parental donations towards a memorial project started the ball rolling, and later the Students' Association made a contribution to the fund. A hut was ruled out by the club committee as Allaway-Dickson was considered a big enough commitment for the size of the club, and hind-sight tells that the importance of any such hut would have been diminished by the N.Z. Forest Service's hut-construction activities of the 1960's. How a bridge came to be decided upon I don't know but sometime in 1959 Ian Cave (then chief guide if I remember correctly) asked me to design the bridge, seeing that, amongst other reasons, I was the only civil engineer active in the club at the time.

My experience of trampers' bridges went from the sublime (two-wire jobs) to the ridiculous (Otaki Forks) with nothing in between. However, I spent a pleasant Sunday afternoon boning up on ideas by trotting up to Otaki Forks and giving that a good eye over. Next, armed with abney and tape I went with Ian and a couple of hangers-on to Cone Hut, after a hut bash at A-D.

Evidently the Forest Service had nominated Cone as the most suitable place for a bridge. Sites close to the hut were soon ruled out (although this is what had been in mind); the river was too wide and trees to support a bridge not available. Eventually the site upstream was chosen as the most feasible one available.

A few sums from the measurements taken there and it wasn't difficult to decide that the material for the bridge should be prefabricated and flown in. A few more enquiries showed the cost of doing this to be more or less within the bounds of the finance available and sighs of relief were heard all round. The timber was all delivered to Popplewell's at Naenae in the first term of 1960 and a variety of people cut it, bored it, painted it, marked it and bundled it up. Meanwhile Ray Hoare organized the steel hangers and such-like hardware.

My calculations had been based on seasoned timber, but it rained fairly often while the timber was being prepared at Pop's place and to boot, the timber merchants had supplied timber nearly as green as we were at bridge building. The result - at least one helicopter load of water was ferried from Kaitoke to Cone. Also I suppose if I were to design it now I would find ways to cut down on the size of some members. Perhaps that would have relieved the troublesome trees a bit - though not much.

The general idea had been to get the bridge built in the May holidays and a helicopter was to be available one Friday to ferry in all the materials. I took a day's leave and shot up to Cone with Steve Reid to be there when it all started to come in. No such luck. On Friday it blew a gale and we amused ourselves as usefully as we could. On Saturday hoards of people began to arrive and Ewan McCann announced, "The helicopter didn't arrive from the South Island because of the wind yesterday. It will come today." Oh yeah, I thought, as it was still blowing and also trying to rain. A vastly overcrowded Cone Hut didn't appeal much so three of us departed for Allaway-Dickson. Those who were left wished for a bridge next morning as the Tauherenikau had risen enough to deter all but the most determined.

Some time later in the May holidays Ray Hoare saw all the material stacked up near the site and a couple of week-ends in June were sufficient to get the bridge built, with various people claiming just as various first traverses of it. The decision to precut the timber was vindicated and all the hangers seemed to be the right length. There was some trouble on the right bank and adjustments were made to give easier access. I hadn't been able to come up either week-end and it was a couple of years before I saw a slide of the bridge, and realized it had been hung on different trees from the ones I had selected.

Over the years the right bank trees, one in particular, have sagged slowly but surely under the weight of the bridge. Measures to halt this sagging have occupied the club on numerous occasions since then. A concrete block was put in at one time as a foundation for a prop under the upstream tree but the prop was never put in, and it's hard to say how effective it would have been anyway. However, from time to time exaggerated reports were received that the bridge was in a state of imminent collapse and this led to an inspection in 1967. It was found to be quite usable and appeared likely to remain so if some maintenance work was carried out. This would have involved renewing hanger support bolts, painting some of the timbers and possibly completing the prop for the tree. But before any of this was done, that tree on the left bank collapsed and the bridge was in the river. It has since been attached to a new tree and hoisted into position again, where may it long continue.

Cone Bridge 1970: repair work took almost as long as original construction

Instruction Courses

T.S. Clarkson

As a university club is of necessity a group of young people, the need arises for instruction courses in skills associated with tramping and alpine activities.

In the realm of bushcraft the need is not very great, if judged by the lack of success of instruction weekends run by the club. University club members are at least seventeen years old when they begin tramping with the club and by that age they have frequently had some introduction to the bush, either privately or with some youth organisations. This minimum age is a feature not found within other clubs, which must, perhaps to protect themselves, run educational courses in bushcraft skills for their rather younger membership.

Most techniques in the bush are best learned by experience, by observing and taking advice from those who have survived inexperience; and certain others, for example, the more sophisticated art of navigation, by actually leading trips. River-crossing is perhaps the skill which most needs practical demonstration. Although courses were seriously considered within the club as early as 1950 it is only in the last two years (1969 and 1970) that formal courses have been organised and held in the Tauherenikau Valley. Nevertheless, it seems that these courses, in spite of able and competent instructors, can achieve but limited success because that which is most needed in the bush, experience, cannot be acquired in one weekend.

Of rather more value have been the alpine instruction courses (AIC). These have been formally organised within the club for about thirty years and it is perhaps remarkable that the form of the AIC is the same in 1970 as it was before 1950 - though for some reason it seems that to be a pupil on an AIC today does not give one quite the status that it did in the fifties. The AIC has been the responsibility of the Chief Guide who in almost every case has taken a leading part in the organisation and the instruction. A brief resume of AICs in the past ten years gives some idea of the type of course through which the club has now introduced hundreds to the snow techniques used in tramping and climbing. Ian Cave was Chief Guide in the early sixties and his courses, with about a dozen pupils each time, took the form of several single days' rockclimbing instruction, followed by either one or two weekends of basic snowcraft instruction on Egmont or Ruapehu.

Bill Stephenson's course in 1963 was similar although a week at Kapuni Lodge on Egmont was involved. Bill was the only instructor. At about this time Bill and Peter Barry, a climber, who even at this stage of his youth had made notable ascents in the Southern Alps, attended an FMC instructors' course, and the 1964 course, as direct result of this, was perhaps the best arranged of this era and should stand as a model for future courses. The basic programme was three lectures, one on rockclimbing and two on snow techniques, with two full days at Titahi Bay followed by a weekend at Ruapehu in July and a week on Egmont in August.

Peter and Bill spent time producing instructive slides for the evening lectures which went off very welI as a result. Only seven pupils completed the entire course but with extra instructors on the practical part of the course the pupil-instructor ratio was probably as favourable as it has ever been.

Peter Barry took a major part in instruction courses up tilI 1967 when his departure for the Andes and residence in Peru ended his activity with the club. The 1965 course was of the form of earlier courses but as an extra Peter arranged a week trip to the Waimakariri after finals for about eight of the pupils. Any hope of success for this idea was simply washed away by the heavy rain which poured down for the whole time the party was in the Crow Valley. This scheme has unfortunately not been tried since. In the years 1966-70 the AIC has reverted to the earlier form, only one weekend of formal instruction on Ruapehu or Egmont. Success has varied, weather and snow being the determining factors. In fact, this type of course is too vulnerable to the whims of the weather gods and on several occasions, for example 1968, the amount of useful practical instruction has been minimal. However, in the more recent years increasing affluence has allowed those interested to make many more trips to the North Island mountains where the experience is gained.

Perhaps the most realistic evaluation of the worth of the club instruction course is to consider the number of climbers produced, perhaps by noting how many still have an active interest in climbing five or ten years later. Too often it is found that many never advance their climbing beyond AIC pupil standard, perhaps being interested in snow techniques only as a part of tramping rather than as a prerequisite for active mountaineering. Nevertheless, from every course of the past ten years there is at least one active mountaineer today who would certainly do credit to the VUWTC leaders for an introduction to and encouragement in mountaineering.

Gorges

J. R. Keys

Geologically speaking the Tararua Range is an example of a growing anticline. As the land is thrust up, the rivers cut down and gorges are formed where the rivers flow through adjacent high country. This antecedent drainage pattern is typical of the Tararuas, especially along the Wairarapa side. Gorges have been liberally cut throughout the range and each of the rivers has at least one 'gorgeous' section.

The longest river in the Forest Park, the Waiohine, has miles of impressive gorge scenery, with its overhanging rock walls almost touching in one or two places above Hector Forks. Interesting folds and deformations of rock strata are revealed in several places, and long, though narrow, pools offer easy travel. The upper Ruamahanga is also rather impressive in places but there are few large pools and less swimming is required. The Otaki gorge is fast flowing and contains many rapids. Waitewaewae is 1100' above sea level while Otaki Forks are only 300' above sea level. Gorges such as the Ohau, Waingawa, Hector, Atiwhakatu, the lower Tauherenikau and Ruamahanga, and Hutt offer easy though interesting travel especially on a warm day. Several of these can be traversed for much of their distance on lilos, and have only small walls though these are waterworn and smooth. The volume of water flowing through these lesser gorges is not great on a fine day but in or after heavy rain the gorges are places to keep clear of. The lower Mangahao gorges are especially endangered in this respect by the dams, but they are still very good with many compulsory dips, big pools and rapids. Generally water flows gently in the lower gorges where the rivers leave the range, so that the swimming tramper must swim very hard to keep up, literally. However in the upper gorges a much faster rate of water fall is characteristic, for example the Ruamahanga and Waingawa.

All Tararua gorges are negotiable in fine weather but in 'average' Tararua weather they are usually impassable. It is not surprising that most through-travel is along the ridges though parties are occasionally forced down to the gorges in bad weather. It is then that 'sidle' becomes a dirty word. It would not be surprising if a future generation of Tararua trampers had one leg shorter than the other!

Most Tararua trampers have only brief encounters with gorges on the course of a trip, and it is only since the last war that the term 'gorge trip' has come into existence. However, the earliest recorded gorge trip was pre-war. It was led by Prof. Boyd-Wilson and featured the Whakatiki Gorge, Upper Hutt. Whenever the water was too deep for wading the party 27 sidled over bluffs and on one of these, a 'steepish, mossy slope ', a person slipped and slid down the slope, gathering speed and heading for a hundred foot drop. At the edge he was stopped by an ake-ake bush growing there, and was subsequently rescued by means of long birch saplings.

By 1951 river trips were becoming popular and the July Heels of that year contained an advertisement for the subsidiary Swampers Club. Membership qualifications for this club were two river trips. Some gorges were treated with disdain - particularly the lower Waingawa in 1951 during a working party attended by club members. One person was reported 'swimming valiantly with his nose upstream but moving steadily towards the sea'. He had a load on and the river was a Iittle high.

The first record of lilos being used refers to a trip down the lower Tauherenikau gorge in March 1952. There was at least one puncture, probably by one of the group with 'an otter complex'. It must be remembered that the phrase 'sink or swim' does not offer any reliable alternative when applied to gorge negotiation. Heavy boots, bulky pack, cold weather and cold water mean that even if you can swim, travel tends to the unpleasant. The earliest method used for pool negotiation was 'pack floating' and this is still common. The tramper wades into the pool until it becomes too deep. At this stage he must start swimming using a hybrid style - a cross between the dogpaddle and the breaststroke. This style is hampered by the pack and shoulder straps but has the advantage that if your pack stays on your back, your gear (usually) stays dry. A more sophisticated method is to throw your pack into the pool, leap on top of it and lazily paddle with your arms. The length of pool that can be traversed by this method depends inversely on the porosity of your pack, but it has the advantage that you often stay dry. Since 1952, though, lilos and inner tubes have replaced this latter method as a means of positive flotation. By clutching the tube or lilo to your chest, both you and your gear have the opportunity of staying dry though in practice you still encounter the basic problem of gorge trips - that of keeping warm. A worthwhile method of gorge negotiation for the fair sex is to become a parasite, sticking to some manly, broad back in the deep places. This was done on the lower Tauherenikau gorge trip of '52. Nowadays even more modern aids available include polystyrene rafts and collapsible canoes. Unaesthetic? Enough of masochism, we're out for enjoyment. Anyway suitable dead trees are hard to come by and have far too deep a draught.

With this in mind we come to recent gorge trips, skipping over the descent of the upper Tauherenikau gorge in 1954 where there was 'hardly a stretch where the roar of falling waters was unheard', and also over the 1961 Gollans stream trip and its temporarily missing party members. In 1968 a 'varsity party negotiated the Otaki gorge and only managed to lose a few spectacles and all warmth and dryness. Some people were rescued from the brinks of waterfalls, others were not and washed up on convenient boulders. A pack 'lodged under white foaming water was more difficult to rescue. The full Waiohine river was traversed in 1969, and the full Ruamahanga in 1970 by 'varsity trampers. They say in the books concerning safe tramping to take lots of wool. Well then, for gorge trips take lots more (a whole flock of sheep?). Things like wet suits, thick grease and hot baths are also necessary.

Throughout the years some gorge trippers have not discovered how heinous it is to sidle. In 1952 one person 'emulated the chamois' on the bluffs above the lower Tauherenikau river, and in '54 a falling rock hit an unfortunate lass while the party was sidling on deer trails, above the upper Tauherenikau gorges. In 1969 a sidler of the Waiohine gorge became covered from head to foot in bastard grass seeds. Still, the practice of avoiding horrible water on gorge trips undoubtedly promotes rock climbing. Shivers up to a foot long have been recorded in the Waiohine river - you must admit there is some incentive to sidle. All in all, 'varsity trampers should have become pretty much at home in gorges, and have grown experienced at river crossings and lifesaving. A taste of Tararua gorges certainly leaves you less in the lurch in the more famous gorges of the West Coast. And remember there are no routefinding problems in gorges - just head downstream.

Pack floating in the Mangahao Gorge. February 1965

Five Decades

A Few Misty Memories

J. Tattersall

It all happened so long ago.

And I plunge my hand down into the lucky dip of memory and what does it bring out? Scraps of sights and speech and people. Some clear, some clouded and misty. The smell of smoke in the bush and dripping trees, the whistling of cold wind and sunshine and glare from boulders and from snow.

Yet some early images persist - the inaugural meeting in a side room of the old V.U.C. Gym - a handful of would-be trampers - Bobby Martin-Smith representing the Students Association, there to assist at the Nativity and to give official cognizance and recognition - John Myers elected chairman, pleasant, informal and slightly inaudible. Another image of events some few weeks later. The new Club's first big trip - in the morning sunshine on the Rona Bay Wharf. An enquiry from me, well intentioned but slightly patronising, offering to help a new tramper with a hopelessly insecure, bulgy bag, secured with a strap, by way of a swag. His ready assent and then when I knelt on it the sickening sound of a china plate inside it breaking.

Of boiling fish in a steady downpour of rain but in the shelter of forest trees in the Orongorongo - fish caught that morning in Palliser Bay and lugged over the Matthews Saddle in a thunderstorm.

And strong recollections of our guide and guardian, E. J. Boyd-Wilson - "the Prof." Perhaps the strongest that of his swag consisting of sugar bag and cord. He was the only man in my considerable experience who carried such an object with apparent comfort and without cut shoulders.

And a fairly clear image remains of a three day tramp into the Waiorongomai and back over the range to Upper Hutt - or thereabouts. Our most distinguished guest, brought by the Prof., was G .S. Peren, newly arrived from abroad and destined shortly to command at Massey - on this occasion immaculate in corduroy breeches, stockings and with walking stick - his pack I do not recall. And notwithstanding arduous walking and rain and a crawl on hands and knees under some hundreds of yards of mountain scrub with irreparable damage to the corduroy breeches and - I fancy - a lost walking stick, his spirit and endurance impressed us and belied our too critical assessment of his undue elegance.

I remember too our trip on the then rather ill-defined route through the Urewera down the half-flooded Whakatane River and our over-intimate acquaintance with the brown waters of it, and the ultimate arrival at Ruatoki with food supplies exhausted and our entry into the store through the back door - it being Sunday - to replenish ourselves. It was on this journey that we formulated the interesting climatic conclusion that rain fell every night in that region. My own special tribulation centred on the party's large blackened porridge billy, of which I was the carrier - on top of my swag - and which seemed invariably the last article available for packing.

Most of all I remember companions many dead but few forgotten - our arguments and discussions and their surprising cheerfulness and endurance. I think of our man Phil who insisted on going armed with a rifle down the then little known Marchant Ridge of the Tararuas, against possible attacks by reported ferocious wild cattle, and the apprehension of the man following immediately in Phil's wake, who on steep descents often found himself looking down the barrel of the rifle which he had been assured was loaded. But it all happened so long ago.

The Thirties

A.G.Bagnall

The haste with which one grasped this assignment gave way to a lengthy period of anxious cogitation, doubt, uncertainty, even scepticism about one's ability to define the precise character of tramping in the pre-war years - with a belated awareness that whatever one writes will be a restricted personal impression open to correction or challenge from any surviving contemporary. First of all, perhaps, one should try to answer some questions: who tramped, and where? - deferring to another place the possibly more interesting problem of why they did so. In retrospect the tramping circle looks something like a spiral nebula. At the centre the dedicated trampoholics, compulsive week-enders whenever possible, examinations not dissuading; in the next layer a less passionately devoted group who would turn out for a few trips a year, some clubtrips, some private. On the outer arms of the nebula the more numerous samplers who would grace a Christmas or an Easter expedition with their presence and patronise one or two Sunday or week-end excursions; and this for a wide range of motive: an attractive area, something new, a prestige journey, because "X" was going, or, more simply, the occasional urge of the hills. Others were of divided allegiance, played hockey, football or ran with the harriers; then even more than now it was something to be on top of Kaukau or Belmost Trig in mid-afternoon and on a snow-covered Hector at midnight.

The Club: the membership as a whole through the decade might be grouped into three generations. The first, when the writer joined in 1931, seemed, in the eyes of an impatient teen-ager, a fin de siecle group of survivors from the twenties, remotely elderly, female-dominated, nominally headed by a much-talked-of-father-figure, E. J. Boyd-Wilson. Quietly pushing through this restrictive undergrowth was an already maturing group of students some of whom were to be the leaders of Wellington tramping in the mid-thirties. From 1936 the core of the nebula changed again to be formed mainly of the vigorous masculine irreverence of the immediate post-war generation.

But who? Boys and girls, men and women, chiefly scientists and lawyers. The writer's memory is again possibly at fault in claiming the dubious distinction of being virtually the only regular male arts faculty student, although later there was someone called Scotney and for a short time J. D. Freeman. Some of the dedicated women were of this faculty as were many of the uncertain supporters, but a 1932 Mount Orongorongo trip is not untypical: one chemist, one botanist, two engineers and a meteorologist plus A. G. B. and this before the days of Gabites, Watson-Munro and J. B. Taylor. In an era of few full-time students the club seemed to suffer particularly from the annual loss of many keen members to the South Island professional schools.

Before one continues with further name-dropping, it is the writer's feeling, challenged by at least one indignant contemporary, that as the decade advanced club boundaries wilted or were disregarded by joint trips from a membership which was Tararua as well as Varsity. When the writer joined the Tararua Club in 1929 it, too, was an older generation organisation to be transformed in the mid thirties by an over-spill from Varsity and the more durable 'scum'. In the thirties for many of us club boundaries for a time ceased to matter except for the basic office-holders, committees and trip leaders. But here the point holds. G . B. Wilson who himself had long scorned the T.T.C., in a generous tramping young "middle-age" led key University trips such as Tararua crossings as did Tom Smith and others. F. B. Thompson tried out his passion for organisation on a reluctant student body and then happily graduated to the secretaryship of the T.T.C. And the truly famous women of the period, Huggins, Shallcrass, Singleton with their partners from southern universities, Mary Ewart and Betty Lorimer, made nonsense of club boundaries. In retrospect was this or that trip Varsity, T.T.C., or private? It was and is irrelevant, but what is important is that for the years of their direct and indirect association these women with others gave tramping a standard and character which was basically that of the V.U.C.T.C. Their independence, their willingness to route find for themselves not merely in the Wellington hills but in the Alps set a pattern for those who followed.

The kind of trips: the freshers week-end that few if any freshers ever had the temerity to venture upon, intellectual trips in the Orongorongos - the alcoholic ones only crept in during the last years of the decade - brain twisting camp-fire discussions when to the annoyance of the physically dedicated, people like Max Riske would go on - and on; Christmas trips for those who could afford them; the highlights, the Wairau and the Kaimanawas, building up from the Waimakariri to the Rakaia and the Godley. Prolonged journeys through the North Island hills and the Southern Alps, even making some first ascents of bumps that Pascoe and the C.M.C. hadn't quite got round to. And of course the searches, not highly organised L. D. Bridge S. and R. operations but wide sweeps through the Tararuas for days, even weeks, at a time. One's first tramping memory is as a school-boy seeing Bobby Martin-Smith in 1927 wearily climbing the hill to Firth House after the Diederich-Scanlon operation.

Where they tramped has already been answered in part. The Great Depression hit New Zealand in 1930. Even those in established positions didn't lightly dash off across the straits for a three-day weekend. It was not until 1934 that any but the most assured or financially courageous ventured far afield except at Christmas. Why didn't we hitch more? So it was the Orongorongos and Tararuas. In their pre-landrover maturity the 'Orongos' were still a magical area to which even the trip over was fraught with hazard, the track dangerous with challenge - from the 'dark hoozler' who could leave one struggling at the last bog before the saddle as he disappeared into the Turere, or, greater humiliation, to be left behind by the graceful feminine figure of the 'Red Terror' whose light-footed speed embarrassed many a husky male. But even the Orongos cost money as the old trip-book shows: a mid-winter ascent of Papatahi seems to have been really extravagant. "Fares 1/6" - good old Cobar - "Bread 6d. Rice 8d. Butter 7½d. Honey 10d. Chops 1 /-" a total of 5/1 d. but of course the honey would have done for another two weeks if it didn't tip upside down in one's pack.

And so to the hideous indulgence of a winter-crossing (led by T.R .Smith): Fares a whole 6/5d. with such extravagant extras as a torch for one shilling and snow glasses for 3/6d. which brought the grand total to a bankrupting 14/1 d. Winter crossings, apart from financial worries, were a leader's nightmare. As Paul Powell has graphically retold, even with precautions, the worst could happen. One precaution through much of this period was a rigorous pre-crossing selection trip. On one occasion an ambitious but unfit aspirant on the way home from his cumulative 10,000 feet of Orongorongos hid in the scrub on the Baker rather than face the last brutal dash for the boat with his callous companions.

But it was chiefly the Tararuas for the 'big stuff': for a brief period very hopefully even the Tararuas for skiing, the longer trips in George Higgin's truck or in those of Stan or Wally Mangin gradually ranging further and further from base. One such was a long carbon-monoxide-dominated night journey to Waikaremoana in Easter 1938 - six boys and three girls, the girls fated to marry three of the boys, three of whom were shortly to join the RAF from which one would return. There were other more successful long trips before September 1939 and many more weekends but even at the time and certainly in retrospect this trip seemed to symbolise the end of a particular generation and its inevitable replacement by those who survived through to the mid-1940's.

One has touched on the social aspects of tramping although normal student independence saved us from the organised activities and glee rhythms of the T.T.C. Not that people didn't sing. From Tom Birks's rendering of Babyface in 1931 one advanced in seven years to Paul Powell's sophisticated and skillful parody, T'Was on the Top of Alpha I Met Her, a permanent contribution to the folk-song of the New Zealand hills. But how many know the identity of the abandoned fairy? On the whole we should have been saved from taking ourselves too seriously even if some in evitable professionalism crept in with growing technical training and skill. The decade, although increasingly overshadowed by what lay at the end of it was nevertheless a good one to have known the club.

1934 Christmas trip party. Back row Left to Right: Chorlton, F. Huntingdon, C. Watson-Munro, S. Egj…, unknown, R. Perry, C.J. Read. Front row Left to Right: I. Eggers, M. Coup, D. Viggers.

1937-38 Christmas trip. Arthur's Pass. Back row from left to right: Bonk Scotney, A.R. Perry, Rawi Wright, A.G. Bagnall, Eric O'Brien, Roger Chorlton, Garth Button, Bob Bradshaw, Steve Wilson. Front row left to right: Jim Croxton, Dora Bagnall, (nee Hans

Waimakariri 1926. Left to Right: Harold Holt, P. Martin-Smith, J. C. Beaglehole

The Forties

H. Evison

To a schoolboy before the war, life in semi-rural Lower Hutt seemed pretty well confined by steep, gorse-clad hills. As for the remoter ranges - Tararuas, Rimutakas, Orongorongos - I never met anyone while I was at school who went there, except as far as they could be approached by bicycle. 'Hills are for climbing,' proclaimed our somewhat florid schoolsong - which seemed to suggest that not infrequently the school board of governors and staff, led by the Principal in full academic dress, might be seen threading their way ecstatically up the hillside. But they never did. The flat confines of a rugby field were officially considered to provide all the healthy exercise that was necessary for anyone.

Occasionally there were rumours concerning odd eccentrics called 'Trampers', who went into the ranges on purpose and got lost. This cult presumably resembled nudism: their motives were obscure, and probably obscene. When I got to 'varsity, there sure enough was a tramping club. Where did they go, and what for? It took me practically a year to find the spiritual strength to go along and find out.

I remember being saddle-proud in no uncertain fashion, on my first weekend trip into the Southern Tararuas. After painfully dragging the chain to the top of the first steep hill on the way in to Hutt Forks, I had to telI the leader I was finished. I asked him for my rail ticket back to town, but he wouldn't give it to me. He said I had to go on. One of the older students compassionately took some of my gear, and in deepest shame I plodded on. Later, on the steep pull up All Fours Ridge, I remember the miraculous feeling of getting my second wind. I asked for my gear back, and went on like a mountain goat for the rest of the trip. Getting benighted on Quoin didn't seem half bad, and I enjoyed fumbling our way through a June snowstorm on the ridge to Alpha. Being a day late back to work cost me a day's pay (four shillings), but I had acquired the tramping bug, and the confidence which comes from knowing just where the limits of one's endurance lie.

War-time restrictions completely confined the activities of the club. I can't remember any student in those days who owned a car, or even a motor bike. Petrol rationing put many private vehicles up on blocks, while some persevered on the roads with the aid of gas-burners, which imparted a marked list to starboard. No-one was supposed to travel more than fifty miles from Wellington, unless on business essential to the war effort -which tramping wasn't. 'Is your journey really necessary?' was as compelling a slogan in those war-time years as 'The walls have ears', or 'Careless talk costs lives.'

Eastbourne still had a bus service, and a trip into the Orongorongos meant walking from Muritai. Gollans Valley and the 'Gentle Annie' into the Wainuiomata were as well-tramped then as the Gutsbuster and the Five Mile. North of Wellington, the new railcar service provided cheap transport, and fortunately the timetables allowed weekend trips. From the railway stations at Kaitoke, Woodside, Dalefield, and Masterton, the long country roads into the hills became well-known to trampers.

The club programme followed a fairly set pattern. We started the year with a freshers welcome trip and probably a Southern Crossing. Easter was good for a Northern Crossing. Throughout the year there would be weekend trips every two or three weeks, with Sunday trips in between, quite well attended. A Swotting Trip, usually to Tawhai, would be the last before finals, 'after which would come the Reunion in the Tauherenikau. After the war, some enthusiasts on the committee organised the purchase of a large ex-army Bell Tent, for use at reunions. Requiring four strong men to carry it, this device seemed to ensure that an increasing number of trips would be based at a roadside, and the club for a time seemed in danger of degenerating into a camping outfit. Christmas trips to the Southern Alps were resumed in 1945, in the Waimak[1]. These were always preceded by Get Fit trips, including rock-climbing at Titahi Bay. Ten shillings was an adequate outlay for a weekend trip in those days, covering transport, food and all.

The first post-war Christmas trip was a highly successful one to the Wilkin, in 1945-6, where some creditable climbing was done. In that year too, I think, as well as in 1946-47, the policy was followed of running a second Christmas trip to the Waimak, less arduous and less expensive. Had the club enforced the original intention of restricting the harder trips such as to the Wilkin and the Hopkins to experienced climbers, and insisted on all others going to the Waimak, later misfortunes might have been avoided. But because the Hopkins, for instance, was a more glamorous place, there was always pressure from people who had the money to go on the 'big trip', whether they had much experience or not.

One of the highlights of 1946 was the 'Ex-Servicemen's Reunion' of 15- 16 June, at the Tauherenikau Chalet. About sixty ex-servicemen, admirers, and others, converged on the Hut, carrying altogether probably the most impressive shipment of grog ever seen in the valley. The idea of getting pissed in the bush seemed to have caught on, and it is a pity no one had a movie camera there to record the succession of impromptu and highly original entertainments which followed.

There was a high attendance at tramps throughout 1946, and at the end of the year more than 40 people enrolled for the Christmas trips - more than half opting for the Hopkins. One of the finest mountain valleys in the country, the Hopkins was not well known in those days, except that it had a wealth of peaks and tributaries and had been the scene of a multiple climbing tragedy in the 1930's when some promising young Alpine Club members were killed. Parties from the Tararua Club and the Wellington Section of the N. Z. Alpine Club were also going into the Hopkins that season, and it was with a considerable sense of anticipation that the V.U.C.T.C. party of about 24 arrived there just before Christmas Eve.

The expedition was properly organised into small groups of five or six according to experience - some to tramp, some to do novice climbs, and some to climb in earnest. The weather was fine, and much was done. Then, on New Year's Eve, 19 of the party assembled at the head of the valley to cross into the Dobson via Faith Col, and thence over Barron Saddle to the Mueller and the Hermitage. The Tararua party of six experienced men was crossing at the same time. We had been assured that the crossing was quite straightforward, and an advance party had already been up to the top to reconnoitre. How was it that the conviction grew that the crossing of the Neumann Range was going to be easy? Perhaps in exchanging information trampers and climbers, like yachtsmen, tend to play down the technical difficulties of what they have done or seen, in case the other fellow thinks they are exaggerating, or unduly impressionable.

At 10 a.m. on New Year's Day 1947 the 'varsity party was having scroggin atop the Neumann Range. A reasonable grade of snow slope appeared to lead down the Dobson slopes, laced by the glissade marks left by the Tararua party earlier, and the descent was begun without ropes. Soon afterwards, a deterioration in snow conditions caused the leading men - both experienced pre-war members - to pause, but before they could lead off to safer snow an act of foolishness on the part of somebody, presumably impatient at the delay, caused another to falI out of control. The snow avalanched, carrying eleven people down the mountainside. Roy Dickson and Stanley Allaway were killed, and five injured.

The Dobson accident of 1947 was a bitter experience for the club. The Iives of two promising young members had been lost, and the most ambitious and extensively organised trip yet attempted had ended in tragedy. Nothing could make amends for these disasters; this much was obvious to everyone. Yet few could have been prepared for what followed. The ghoulishness of the newspapers (the chief offender, a staff reporter from The Press, was later awarded the annual journalists' prize for the best effort of the year), the vehemence of the criticism, and the Star Chamber proceedings of the Timaru Coroner's Court, combined to impose a far greater burden of recrimination than arises from fatal accidents nowadays. Mountaineering at that time was still generally regarded of course as a fool's game, for the British ascent of Everest and knighthoods from the Sovereign were yet to bring it respectability. On three counts which were unanswerable, the charge was sheeted home: we had been amateurs, we had been students, and we had been wrong. Professional guides on both sides of the Alps voiced the sort of opinion expected of professionals: a party like ours should never have been up there.

1925 Urewera trip. Back row left to right: P. Martin-Smith, Teddy Pope, A. Wiren, M. Wiren, Ian Roy, Jack Yeates, Bill Denton. Front row left to right: Bill Jolliffe, Leitch, Marg Myers, Irene Godfern, Elsie Beaglehole, Jack Tattersall.

VUCTC party at Godley Hut, December 1941. Back row Left to Right: Nancy Scotney, J. Jackson, Barney Butchers, John McCreary, Bonk Scotney, Bill Newell, Bert Foley, Hallam Smith, Gordon McDonald, Dorian Saker. Front row Left to Right: John Gillies, Roger

Prof. E. J . Boyd-Wilson

1958 party in the Waingawa river. Left to Right : Dave Beaglehole, Dawn Rodley, Peter Campbell, John Thomson, Harry Wakelin.

1970 Freshers' Trip at lunch. Left to Right: Mike Ryan, Trisha Healy, Linda Dyett, Mary Stewart, Geoff Todd, Kathy Baxter, Mary Atkinson

This is not to say that there was no lesson to learn from the Dobson accident. It showed up the fatal weakness to which large parties are prone in a crisis, through lack of manoeuvrability, and the weakness inherent in clubs like ours, where persons of doubtful experience may be admitted to potentially dangerous trips. I think this latter weakness had been intensified for us by the war, which had deprived the club of several whole seasons of experience in alpine trips.

During 1947 the club decided that a fitting memorial to Stanley Allaway and Roy Dickson would be a new hut in the Tararuas, the latest and best. Time, labour, and enthusiasm were to be forthcoming unstintingly, as events were to prove, and when it came to the point, not a little expertise. But alas, what we were going to prove sadly lacking in was firm and consistent management of the project. This is always the trouble with amateur clubs: you might get plenty of willing hands, but not always the right decisions to guide them.

An incredible amount of work went into preparations for building that hut. Practically the whole year was devoted to working parties. Everything had to be carried in over the Puffer from Andrews' farm, on human backs. A large number of ex-members and friends of the club took part in these operations. There was a Freshers' working party on the 19th-21st of March, another on the 26th-27th, and the following week was the Easter working party, which took place in continual heavy rain. This was an affair for muscle-men. Five days were spent in carrying boulders up from the river bed on galvanised iron 'stretchers', and cracking them on the site with sledge-hammers. The reason for this was that someone had thought of having a bitumen floor, which was supposed to require a platform of compacted rock and sand, and would last forever. As we lugged those boulders endlessly up the steep slope to the hut site and watched them slowly sinking into the mud under the blows of the sledge-hammers, we did not know that several working parties and thousands of hammer-blows later the bitumen floor expert would be leaving Wellington, and with him the slender majority on the committee favouring bitumen floors. No doubt the presence of an abundance of cracked rocks buried under an old wooden floor may puzzle some future archaeologist.

By winter-time the framework of the hut was up, but timber was still being carried in the following February. Even with the most efficient of hut building supervisors - I can remember three in succession - frustrating delays seemed inevitable; as, for instance, when some enthusiasts used up all the cement which had been laboriously carried in, on building a fireplace without washing the gravel properly. Fresh cement had to be carried in, and the whole thing done again.

The Allaway-Dickson Memorial Hut was completed in 1949, a tribute to the sincerity with which it was conceived and to those, of whom I cannot claim to be one, whose perseverance saw the project through to completion. In terms of man-hours and energy expended, it must have been one of the most expensive ever put up in the mountains.

The 1940's closed with a Christmas trip up the Dart and down the Rees. We went in there with 3 weeks' food and a heterogeneous force of 20 or 30 people with the intention of tramping, with a little climbing thrown in. Perhaps that kind of trip is played out now; at any rate, it deserves to be. We were making a mistake to try to mix cross-country tramping with climbing, without a really fit party. Also, like most New Zealand trampers we carried too much junk. We staggered along under appalling loads, so that the majority were too whacked to attempt to get off their backs in the morning even when the weather cleared, as occasionally it did.

Altogether, the 1940's were a checkered period for the club. We had some marvellous times, for there was never any doubt that the mountains, wet or fine, provided a magnificent relief and antidote for the normal weekday student life of swot and bustle. Club trips generally took place to the highly congenial accompaniment of many bawdy songs, a modest quantity of grog, and endless philosophical and political argument. But as a tramping club, I don't think we left the VUCTC in 1949 any better than we found it in 1941. We had failed to establish as a strong tradition a hard core of experienced trampers, able to encourage and train a new group each year and so maintain and improve the standard of tramping and mountaineering so necessary for a successful club. We should have run more small, mobile trips, and fewer large, social ones. But then, all this would have required a degree of organisation, direction, and discipline which few students would put up with. You can achieve that sort of discipline in a club of permanent members; but a varsity club, with its transitory membership, can hardly be held to any long-term policy, let alone one which might interfere with the traditional and very necessary student propensity for independence of thought and action.

The joy of the VUCTC in the 1940's was its glorious informality and lack of convention, and its imperviousness to any sort of status-game. The club was a great leveller, as indeed is tramping in general. Most of us were active in other student organisations - Debating, Extrav, Students' Association, Socialist Club, and so on, and many people swatted hard as well. But for most of us varsity trampers, I think the Tramping Club was the real essence of varsity life.

The Sociable Years

A. Knox

My early knowledge of the Tararuas came from riding there on horseback from the Wairarapa, or hunting deer and pig in the Northern Tararuas off the beaten track. So when I came to Victoria in 1949, one of a group who were belatedly catching up their education, I wasn't aware there were such things as tramping clubs. Imagine my surprise then, to make acquaintance with the V.U.C.T.C., surely the tramping club to end all tramping clubs.

I know now that half the golden haze that seems to surround those years in my memory must be attributed to the people who shared in what one was doing. I once spent most of the weekends of one year generally alone in the bush, and I cannot now for the life of me remember any of its highlights - except getting lost for half a day, a singularly lonely experience. But when one was with people - how different this could be. Each trip, no matter how minor, had its incidents. Few of us were hairy goats, prancing head-down over vast distances; most were in the mountains to be with the people they Iiked, for mountains and people both were aspects of freedom.

But freedom, as they say, requires some effort. The building of Allaway-Dickson Hut was one such effort, though it was well under way when I first started tramping with the club. Yet the project was also at that time suffering from the malaise that attends all protracted efforts, and it was the energy, keenness and enthusiasm of a few that pushed it on to completion. W. J. (Bill) Cameron was one driving force, and one also thinks of the names of S. F. (Stan) Jenkins, C.R. (Ron) Ellis, Harry Evison, Peter Jenkins, Jack Gibson, and among the fairer sex, those of Gwenda Martin, Daphne Fletcher (now Mrs. Olaf John), June Scott (Mrs. Conrad Blyth) and Jeanette Murray (Mrs. Ward). But this is nowhere near a comprehensive list - suffice it to say that had the work force at Allaway-Dickson concentrated just on that at one time in 1949, Extravaganza may not have gone on.

Two clear memories stick in my mind, of Jack Gibson and I taking turns with a full roll of malthoid from Andrews' Farm through to Tauherenikau Hut (the one not carrying the roll lugging a load of cement and two window frames), and Stan Jenkins endeavouring to finish wiring the bunks at one o'clock in the morning of the opening day. The events of the big day itself are cloudier in my mind. It was estimated that there were upwards of 70 people in the hut that night - but enough to say that a good time was had by all, even if one over-imbiber on the second floor at one point cast momentary gloom and something much less acceptable on the revellers clustered below!

Another big project undertaken by the club was the bridge over Smith's Creek - a timber structure that lasted for years until it vanished in a flood, to be replaced by the present bridge. I remember walking through from Upper Hutt very late one Friday night and felling two trees for the main span at dawn; the weekend following the club was out in full force, gangs hefting the big timbers as though they were battering rams and putting them in place. Stan Jenkins, our adze expert, supervised the decking and, as always, the end of the project was marked by a celebration. My "Tiger Juice" produced for the occasion was a great success. Only one person fell in the fire. Another went to sleep afoot from the edge of a bluff, but luckily did not roll over in the night. It is said that a certain party doing a thesis on freshwater crayfish was heard splashing up and down the stream crying aloud after some vanished specimens in a strangely demented manner, but it is likely a canard.

I call them the sociable years, for that's how I remember them, but it is amazing how much of the sociability was expressed in the exchange of ideas - or, to be more precise, in good old-fashioned argument. Any trip which included A. H. (Bonk) Scotney in the party had its fill of debate; other notable argufiers over the years included L.B. (Pip) Piper, Gunter Warner, Paul Cotten, R.M. (Ross) Martin, Conrad Bollinger and H. C. A. (Tony) Somerset. But some of these names would also appear in a list of the raconteur-songster type of tramper, who usually preferred a dubious ballad to airy argument. Brian Casey was a treasure-house of song, as were Gordon McDonald, the late Ruth Allan and A. H. (Arn) Allan. Harold Gretton was of course a star attraction on any trip, particularly when he had a new composition in hand. "Pick Me Up Tenderly", though perhaps not known all over the country like his "No More Double Bunking" and "a Fast Pair of Skis", is surely the best tramping song ever written.

But of course, as well as the sociability, there was the serious side of tramping, the acquisition of skills at rock-climbing courses at Titahi Bay, and on alpine instruction courses at Egmont; the working parties clearing tracks, the tougher trips, and search and rescue duties. The club was well represented in the Merle Gwynne search in the early 1950's, perhaps the largest-scale search ever mounted in the Tararuas. V.U.C.T.C. members on private trips made many ascents in the south, including Christina, Aspiring, Mitre Peak and many mountains in the Central Alps. Club trips went to the Dart, the Olivines, the Spencers and the Urewera. In the Tararuas, trips varied in vigorousness from a Northern Crossing or Neill-Winchcombe to a picnic at Waitewaewae or Totara Flats. Meanwhile old faces disappeared and newer ones came to fill their places. And one knew, tramping less and less, getting caught up by the world, that it was the beginning of someone else's sociable years.

Base camp in the Waimakariri, 1940-41. Iris Foley and Doris Johanesson adjust one of the heavy looking tents.

The Fifties

J.E.P. Thomson

The age of heroes was past; only the legends persisted. And how could one hope to Iiveup to those exploits? Barney Butchers leading so many up Mt. Wolseley in the Godley that two sittings were needed to accommodate them all on the summit; or that Three Pass trip that turned into a drunken weekend at Carrington Hut, forcing C.M.C. members to sleep out in tents. Even in domestic matters: Allaway-Dickson was built and working parties merely put in a totara pile or two, and white-washed the walls. And there was now no Harold Gretton to celebrate the re-building of the whare-tutae. Still, the Tararuas remained much as ever, and as older members of the club married and pretended to wives inexorably opposed to weekend absences, younger students continued to discover the hills afresh and to become, in their turn, the V.U.C.T.C.

If the purpose of the club was to offer members trips into the hilIs, it certainly took that responsibility seriously. It was no closed society. The effort to cater for all who might want to tramp was however rather rigorously limited by the question of transport. Buses, trains and taxis might suit the deeper pockets of small parties, but hired trucks were cheaper and more convenient. They did have to be filled though, and that meant perhaps twenty; a full truck of thirty-five could subsidise smaller parties later. Thinking in such terms became habitual, so that day trips were almost unknown and visits to the Orongorongos rare. And as each outing was a financial risk, trips tended to be both serious and a little unadventurous. One didn't take a party of thirty down unknown ridges. Just getting them down the lower Waiohine on a cold wet Sunday because the river was not to be crossed at Totara Flats remains vividly in the minds both of the leaders and of the led. The Northern Tararuas especially were a risky business, owing to expense and ignorance. One party into the Ruamahanga failed to make even two-thirds of the planned route in the available time, exhausted one or two people, and coming out by a shorter way, still missed the truck home. The places that were obviously worthwhile and straightforward were the ones regularly visited each autumn and winter: Holdsworth, Mitre Flats, Waitewaewae. Advertising the delights of tramping at the beginning of some years, or providing gear and food lists, paid off in many large autumn trips which set up the kitty for harder winter ventures. If the many unknowingly subsidised the few, the few earned it. Many a whipper-in has shepherded the last of his flock into Fields or A-D only an hour or two before an early breakfast and the next long slow day. Open trips of this kind were commonly run every fortnight until well into July. What most strikes one now on reflection is the persistent determination of the hardier spirits to make high winter crossings. Repeated attempts at the Holdsworth-Mitre ridge were foiled by bad weather; only once, in soft snow, did the party get beyond Jumbo. The Winter Southern was as regularly and more successfully tackled, twice at least in glorious weather. Even these trips were open to all who thought themselves fit, which meant a gruelling experience for those who were not, and sometimes, as a result, for their leaders. This is not to say of course that smaller groups of three or four became unknown; but whereas in the early fifties these trips were written up in Heels, by the end of the decade they were clearly considered to be private and not club trips. It was on one such outing in May 1958 that David Patterson and Bryce Evans died in a snowstorm on a Southern Crossing. The bridge over the Tauherenikau above Cone Hut was designed and built by club members with money given by the parents.

While club parties visiting the Tararuas grew larger, numbers on Christmas trips began to fall, though the concept of the 'club trip' fostered by the difficulties of local transport exerted an influence which was only gradually overcome. It was overcome by the undue responsibility a large party imposed on young leaders, and by the growing interest of club members in climbing. The deaths of Allaway and Dickson scarcely held a lesson even only ten years later, student generations being so brief. But there were enough accidents to give pause. A knee could be damaged in the Spensers as easily as in more difficult country, and although there was an unwritten understanding that leaders were not responsible for the actions of individuals, relatives of the injured were not always understanding about that. On another occasion, one man was knocked unconscious by a falling rock and had to be flown out in a groggy state, while a second, running alone across a snowfield for help, fell and became wedged in a crevasse, and was very lucky to be discovered and rescued before nightfall. Such were the dangers of mountaineering; it is no wonder that sizes were reduced, and that trips, though technically open (by being advertised on the notice board), were filled beforehand. In the earlier years, Christmas trips were run to the Ureweras, the Spencers, and the easier parts of the Otago mountains. In the '52-'53 season, ten people visited the Rockburn, Pyke and Hollyford area but at the same time a party of three climbed Aspiring, claiming this to be a first for club members. During the next few years, Dave Somerset led some notable trips which compromised between mountaineering and numbers. With a party of six in the Hopkins, he and Eric Offner led up Ward and Jackson, and a year later he led a party of seven over the Olivine Ice Plateau from the Forgotten River to the Joe, returning over Arawata Saddle. Both these trips were open to anyone of moderate experience. Dave was at this time also climbing more seriously with members of the Alpine and Tararua Clubs, and this trend was developed further a year or two later when Ian Cave effected a closer link with the Alpine Club, which now offered the practical instruction in mountaineering hitherto provided, in elementary fashion, by older club members. By the end of 1958, even the two Christmas trips were each of five people and filled mainly by invitation; the climbing parties that year were entirely private.

Social life in the club was marked by two regular anniversaries: the Hut Birthday Party in June and the After Finals Bash, both always well attended. The engaging tradition of a Hut birthday cake ended in 1955, but the party continued, much less notable as an orgiastic drinking session than for the somewhat sedate singing of songs. This singing was also a traditional affair (as in many Wellington clubs), but the V.U.C.T.C. prided itself on the aesthetic qualities of its songs and felt rather superior to Eskimo Nell and her still more salacious companions - though some were reserved for emergencies, as when Tony Somerset, returning on a Hutt Valleys' truck from Tapuaenuku, was apologised to for the embarrassing repertoire being sung, and felt obliged to render 'The Harlot of Jerusalem'. American and English folksongs, selected Tararua songs, the sick ditties of Tom Lehrer and Harold Gretton's compositions, these were the staple - the latter's 'Take me up tenderly' was the unofficial club song. The annual Freshers' Trip was also by nature a social occasion, being normally a March reunion notable for the absence of freshers. An endeavour was made to give these trips individuality, by going to such places as the Tuakokopatuna Caves, or Ward Island. Two female freshers attracted by this boating expedition were picked up while swimming by a passing launch, which thereupon turned for the Heads. In the face of such difficulties, it is a wonder the club ever managed to reproduce itself from year to year. One reason for the paucity of freshers may have been that throughout the fifties the club endured a reputation, whether honourably gained in earlier years or not, for drunkenness and immorality. This was of course very readily believed, and handed down as divine revelation, outside the university. In itself, that was no matter, but did affect the club when parents anxiously watched their offspring (and not only girls) climbing the hill to Victoria. It was a brave (or possibly prurient) fresher who ventured out alone, unknowing and unknown. Here the large autumn trips helped, for whether numbers seemed to offer safety, or, more commonly, increased the probability of one's finding a friend or acquaintance, it was on those trips that newcomers joined the club. And being large parties, and making a moderate pace over reasonably easy tracks, they encouraged a good number of girls out, which, apart from improving the quality of the company, led in due course to the club's becoming an important marital agency. Another feature which distinguished the club in the fifties from later years was the predominance of arts students (and the academic success of members must have been higher than in most non-academic clubs). Do arts students tend by nature to be more gregarious, more talkative and at home amongst larger numbers? The four Chief Guides throughout the fifties until 1959 were arts students, but in recent years the smaller groups of mountaineers who have represented the club have consisted often of scientists. Every generation of students thinks itself distinctly pre-eminent, but perhaps we too, in the fifties, and despite those legends of earlier times, were in our turn the last of an old pantheon.

Tararuas in winter, 1935. View north from Holdsworth

The Mountaineers' Philosophy

I.D. Cave

In 1960 two V.U.W.T.C. members, I.D. Cave and J.G. Nicholls, formed a partnership with a most enterprising pair, M. B. Gill and P. Houghton, who were students at Otago, and with them shared in a new if brief phase in the development of New Zealand mountaineering. Forsaking the elaborately planned and executed long snow plod typical of climbing at that time, they took advantage of their greater confidence on rock and their high level of fitness to tackle untried rock routes. Their modus operandi was to travel light and to travel fast, and their objectives always included an element of excitement engendered by venture into the unknown in either new country or a new route.

Their domain was wide, ranging from one end of the country to the other, and often resulted in visits to more remote locations where attractive routes beckoned. Thus in 1962 the impressive 4000' Ramsay face of Whitcombe was climbed, followed immediately by three new climbs on Sabre, Apirana, and Patuki in the central Darrans, of the Milford country.

Love of comfort was an important factor in their attitude to the mountains, ruling out the possibility of those shattering pre-dawn starts all too common in New Zealand. In the Tasman in 1960, the traditional early starter was soon overhauled by an alert, fit party that skipped quickly over the tedious moraine in full daylight and then went on to make light work of the softer snow conditions of the glacier. In this way the south buttress proved to be a very direct access to the summit of Green from Malte Brun Hut and was concluded comfortably in ten hours, inside the fine weather limit imposed by an interminable series of fast-moving depressions.

Speed was another factor in comfort and many times the threatening nor'wester was beaten to the draw, as in the attempt by Gill and Cave on the south ridge of Hopkins, which was foiled by the appearance at dawn of storm clouds over a light, shelterless bivouac at the base of the climb. Abandoning ship hurriedly, the Huxley Gorge Station was reached by nightfall and the hitch-hike back to base at the Hermitage the following day completed a faster and safer, if much longer route than the alternative of battling a return along the divide to Barron Saddle. During a lull in the storm in the following days, a depot of gear left at the Three Johns Hut on Barron Saddle on the way south was recovered in a nippy seven hour return trip from the Hermitage.

However the successes in the north which also included new routes on the south face of Malte Brun and the west ridge of Aiguilles Rouges was spent lazing in the sun in the incomparable alpine meadows as in pursuing success on the solid spectacular rock peaks. Their favourite camping spots were the rock bivvies of the herb fields, havens of life and warmth, set in the tremendous ancient glacial cirques, ringed above by the stark, abruptly rising peaks and quietly descending glaciers and hemmed below by tranquil lakes and deep beech forests.

It was here that the characteristic style of the group was developed, initially by Gill and Houghton in the first seasons of their climbing careers, and later, independently and less fully, by Cave and Nichols on their first visit to the Darrans in 1959. At the conclusion of their climb on Tutoko, 'the mammoth of the Darrans', direct from the valley floor (an altitude gain of 8000'), Cave and Nicholls shared a camp with Gill and Houghton at Turner's Bivvy high above the Age Glacier on the S. E. side of Tutoko. Here, the onset of bad weather brought the 1959 season to a close, but with it came the recognition of kindred spirits and the beginning of a fruitful and happy partnership of the four that continued until 1962.

Can a primus compete?

The Later Sixties

R. Gooder

From my position on the floor of Mid Waiohine hut comfortably entrenched in my sleeping bag, I was in an excellent position to judge the unfairness of the demands of the rest of our party (six of them) to get me up at some ridiculous hour and plunge into the Waiohine for several hours until Totara Flats was reached. We were hoping to travel, ostensibly for pleasure, from Ohau to Walls Whare via Park River and the Waiohine in a weekend. This was in May 1969, when gorge trips were in. The fitties were each weekend vieing with each other to propose more and more improbable Tararua trips, particularly gorge trips in the warmer months or tops trips in the winter. This was an understandable trend in Vic tramping since such things as Forestry huts, tracks and masses of other trampers had taken much of the fun out of it. Another favourite trip was the 'illegal' trip which I'll leave at that to save the guilty. Here one could 'get away from it all' since 'it all' wasn't allowed.

One of the first things that struck me as a beginner was the relative disorganisation of club trips. 'Leader' was the name given to that person most likely to go on a trip. He, sometimes having told the 'Chief Guide' (joke), would put up a trip blurb sheet on the noticeboard and at the appropriate weekend, all or some or none of those who put their names on the list would converge on an agreed upon spot by train, car, someone else's car or, according to some reports, divine intervention. If there was still some distance to travel and it was dark, taxis might even be used to travel to the road-end. From here there was usually at least two hours tramping to a suitable hut or sleeping place. I personally found more satisfaction in this type of tramping anarchy than in the well planned programme of other clubs. It caused some upsets and frustration, but also considerable hilarity, while encouraging great resourcefulness (notably in hitch-hiking).

Speaking of this reminds me that some of VUWTC's finest hours were not concerned with tramping as such. Hitch-hiking was of course a major and often necessary pastime of many Vic trampers. Many and fierce were the competitions which ensued between some Vic 'fitties' to see who could travel farthest, quickest, cheapest. Sometimes indeed I thought the whole point was to beat your rival over the head with how many rides you got, rather than to get quickly and enjoyably from A to B .

The 'Bash ' was enjoyed and celebrated as of old, some years more successfully than others. Alas, it is soon to be no more. The 'moat' and the top window were always handy for relief from either end and a hangover somehow always felt better at A-D.

'Bludging' was another status symbol of the poor student tramper image. It is difficult to generalise about this since human generosity and motives are so variable. Suffice to say that 'oldies' tended to do well on trips they led with freshers. Hut working parties were usually enjoyable, except when back-packing cement – 112 lbs is a lot to carry around, baby. Then there was Cone Bridge. One of the original engineers George Caddie was surprised to see it in such good condition after five years or so, and it has since been considerably renovated. In a way it is sad to see all these new bridges going up. I vividly remember two exciting crossings of a flooded Waiohine at Walls Whare with Tom Clarkson.

The idea of Club Dinners was imported from CUTC and we have now had three, each one more successful than the last. A certain formality governed at the dinner but festivities livened up at some unlucky member's flat afterwards.

Heels, the annual rag, became somewhat more regular and in 1968 sported a very smooth multi-lithed format thanks to editor Pete Radcliffe's efforts and acknowledged persuasiveness. A change in content from straight trip accounts to more abtruse tramping topics such as 'Digital Transport' and the occasional poem was evident.

At the same time VUWTC was a very active club. Trips were run almost every weekend, but during winter and after August only the 'fitties' indulged. Unlike other 'varsity tramping clubs our social tramping was not as successful except for day trips. In particular, few girls unfortunately seemed to indulge (in tramping) though admittedly some of the weekend trips were pretty strenuous. Our 'F.E.' trips however were highly successful and a well known band would take off somewhere most weekends.

During the holidays, trips were organised or disorganised to various places in the South Island for climbing and tramping. Often these were more private trips amongst interested parties and some fine climbing was achieved.

During the year we had Alpine Instruction Courses which included rock climbing days at Titahi Bay or Baring Head and which proved reasonably popular, but the weekends at Ruapehu and Egmont which I went on proved relatively ineffective, once because of weather and once because it was too fine to instruct - everyone wanted to romp, including the instructors! As the standards rise in New Zealand climbing, new techniques will be taught and new equipment used. This may mean that two Alpine Instruction Courses will need to be run, one for the tramper and one for the climber, that is, unless we have a tramper/climber schism in VUWTC.

One of the unfortunate (or fortunate ) things about VUWTC and this is possibly a factor which gives it its apparently haphazard character is that most members stay only three to four years, actively at least, before a new mob takes over. In the late sixties, the 'core' of Vic (sometimes rotten) were strongly steeped in this tradition and perhaps for just this reason provided a fairly good club which though sometimes tested on long trips at least kept things going when the rest of the university were gripped with 'exam fever'.

One lasting memory is of a trip down Oriwa Ridge, bashing through slimy, spiky, exasperating leatherwood and shouting to Nick Whitten: "Are you suffering?" "Ye-es," was the stern reply, which is what it's all about I suppose.

All in a Year’s Work

The Clarence, Christmas 1931

C. John Read

To some of the twenty-one members, this was a Xmas trip to an interesting area, with Prof. Boyd-Wilson as one of the party. To others involved in running the trip, there were here and there some signs of apprehension as to how far the usual rules of a Xmas tramping trip would apply to a professor who had the reputation for being somewhat unorthodox. Many leaders had faced these problems before. Some had lost a few feathers, others had suffered in silence, but a few of the astute ones had turned the situation to their advantage.

The Prof. had his own ways of doing things and leaders found it was not always an easy task to get him to fall into line with their wishes. The leader might think the Prof. was readily agreeing, but could find later that subtle changes had taken place and the Prof. was doing things his own way after all. This was where the astute ones showed up. They realised and accepted the impossibility of submerging Prof. in the party organisation. They therefore made the party rules fit in reasonably well with Prof.'s likely course of action and this made for harmony and usually full co-operation, to an extent that might surprise the leader.

I liked having the Prof. in a party. He is a man of great charm, who quickly won over any irate farmers. (Perhaps we had climbed fences instead of using gates.) In a large party there were usually some who spent time near the base camp. With Prof. in the party the leader did not have to amuse the base party. The Prof. would have some activity in mind to interest them.

You can imagine how sceptical we were when Prof. announced that he was taking in a few tools, nails and canvas to build a canoe to shoot the rapids in the Clarence River. Well , Prof. had built many canoes, so what was the good of arguing. So the nails, tools and canvas went in with the pack train to the Dee Stream.

The great day for canoe building arrived and we went down the Dee a few miles to its junction with the Clarence. Here there were good rapids in a bend in the river. Prof. walked into a manuka thicket and began in earnest - this tree for the keel, others, thinner, for the horizontal and vertical ribs. Nothing was overlooked. Keel and ribs were debarked trimmed and cut to length, and the frame of the twelve foot, Indian-style canoe took shape. Ribs were lightly nailed and then lashed. Wooden profiles, brought in pieces from Wellington, were used on the keel to ensure that the ribs had the correct curve. When the frame was finished to the Prof's satisfaction, the task of stretching the heavy canvas began. While all this work was going ahead, another group was making the carrying frame, which was to bring the canoe back across the gravel spit in the river to the launching point, after the canoeists had shot the rapids.

Prof. Boyd-Wilson in the canoe he built. Clarence 1931

The carrying frame was heavy just as the canoe was heavy, for the manuka poles in the frame had to be long enough to take the canoe easily and thick enough to avoid having the carrying poles too springy. All this weight however was no real problem as there were ample fit males as bearers.

The launching took place after lunch and the canoe, in the hands of two skillful paddlers, shot the rapids easily. It rode and handled well. Most members of the base party, male and female, tried their skill. The fit parties who were away in the Hodder, Muzzle and Clarence Rivers were always keen to shoot the rapids on their days in base. When the trip finished we left the canoe in a manuka thicket, protected from the sun.

So the versatile and resourceful Prof. once again did the unusual and made the trip a memorable one.

Freshers' Trip 1954

Dawn Rodley

Well you see I just come down from Hawkes Bay, you know, to go to this here Victoria University and well what do I see on the notice board there but a list of bods who are going on a tramping trip or something next Sunday.

I 'd kind of heard of this Tramping Club from the kids at the Hostel where I stay, but they warned me against the Vic types - 'a boozy lot who never do any real tramping,' they said.

Anyway I thought, 'I'II give 'em a go,' so here I am next Sunday climbing up a perpendicular road in the Akatarawas with a lot of other hard looking bods who don't talk much but just look grim - like at the hill in front. Pretty soon we gets to the hut but you see we finds it all burnt down so we has lunch down a boggy sort of creek.

Lunch is quite nice you know, us sitting in the sun and talking sorta cultural - like the way these University types like to do. Course I keeps my ears open and tries to remember the long words 'cos I remember what the old man says back home once while we was swillin' the pigs about never missing a chance, you know, to learn something.

Well, after lunch we all goes off to climb a hill thereabouts, but the trouble is everyone decided that they're going a different way from everyone else so that by and by the bush is full of bods climbing over logs and Botanising and Geologising and Geographising and talking and singing and carrying on generally. We never makes the top of this hear hill but scrambles around in a creek and through the bush till we're all tired-like and it's time to go back. Down on the road we climbs aboard the truck and away we goes home.

We sing all the way back and everybody is friendly and nice. I don't know the words to all these here songs and in fact most of the time I'm just going dum-de-dum to the tune, but soon's I can l'm going to learn 'em all up good.

Well, when at last we gets to Wellington I suddenly realises that none of this here vice and depravity has showed up at all. In fact I am commencing to think the Hostel kids have been handing me the old phonus balonus. Or else they don't know what they're talking about. Not even any grog has showed up the whole day, so to console myself I has a rum milk-shake at a milk-bar where we all go after getting off the truck.

Finally, everyone goes off home, and as I catches my tram I thinks to myself, 'Well here's a club I'm going to see a lot more of because it's got the sort of people in it that I want to see a lot more of.'

Hotties in the Hodder

John Atkinson

"The fact is Dave it all boils down to frostbite."

"Oh, you mean like how they reduce whale blubber to oil?"

"Yeah something like that."

“I'm taking six pairs of socks."

"God man you'll lose all your toes, you need at least seven pairs. Two up the river first day. Two up the river second day. Two to get wet climbing Tappy, and one dry pair for pit bashing."

“Jeez Colonel, I forgot the pit bashing pair.'

“Never mind Dave, all you've gotta do is whip down to Tisdalls this afto.''

"Hey Colonel, you reckon two pairs of mittens, two grunds, two woollen shirts, long trou, bush singlet, two jerseys, long johns, balaclava, over trou, swanee, puttees and parka will be enough."

“Hell no Dave, you've left out the most important item.''

"What's that Colonel?"

"A hottie Dave, a hottie. No trip to the Kaikouras in winter should go without a hottie. You know, I've read three accounts of winter trips to the Kaikouras and they all got frostbite or frostnip. Even old Edmund himself said its a very cold hole, and he should know."

"Oh I guess you're right Colonel, but who the hell's going to carry one?"

"Yeah that's a point, we've got a power of gear already."

Silence as the cogs tick over ....... suddenly.

"Hey Dave, I've got a mighty idea we'll use our aluminium water bottles as hotties, save us lugging ordinary ones."

"Shit hot, Colonel, Shit hot.''

And so it came to pass, three nights later on the cold gravel of a Kaikoura river bed, Colonel crawled into his battered arctic pit, clutching a bulging everest sock containing a bottle, full of boiling water. Hotties had come to the Hodder.

The 50 Trip Weekend

J. R. Keys

On Friday night, the 19th of March 1971, 48 club members piled out of a truck at Holdsworth Lodge and raced off in three directions to trace out the figures 5 and 0 in the central Tararuas.

The 5 party, leaving Powell the next morning went from Mid Waiohine Hut, up over Isobel, Holdsworth, Angle Knob and Shingle slip Knob to follow down an untracked spur back down to the Waiohine River. On the Sunday from a camp near Dorset Forks, another untracked spur was pushed up to Dorset Ridge to complete the 5 on Girdlestone. The main O party leaving Mid Atiwhakatu Hut early Saturday morning, went up Baldy from the low saddle on Pinnacle Ridge, and thence over the Kings and Girdlestone to Tarn Ridge Hut. On the Sunday they tramped over The Mitre to Mitre Flats, meeting there the third party who had completed the O by coming over the low saddle to Mitre Flats from a camp in the Atiwhakatu River.

By the Sunday evening everyone had finally rendezvoused with the truck at the Pines, sunburnt, but having successfully filled in a figure 50 for fifty years of Victoria University Tramping.

1925 Urewera party crossing the Whakatane River.

The Urewera Trip 1925

J. C. Beaglehole

There are plenty of men who could do this job better than I can. I grant you that. Some of them will read through the result probably, with the eagle and intimidating eye of the totographer; and that will finish me. There are plenty of them who know all about the annals and the ethnology, and the geology, and the botany, and all the other branches of the natural and unnatural history of the district; and there is precious little that I know. If you want to get up all that go to the experts I only write because of one thing - I have a debt to pay. And Progress is on us.

If you tramp through the Urewera, you might think that Progress can't do much harm there. Those hills and gorges, those precipices hung with their tapestry of thick bush, those swift rivers and cold torrents, those few stony flats grown over with manuka, most homely and comforting of New Zealand trees - when is some poet going to sing the common, adorable beauty of the manuka bloom? - those rare and rarely-trodden tracks - you might think that they were immune from Progress. But you can never tell. We live in an age of achievement and at any moment some ingenious individual may patent a system for extracting motor-spirit from manuka or transmuting Urewera air into banknotes. The rough places will be made plain. Already they're putting a motor road through. That means nice red and yellow filling-stations. Perhaps they'll brighten up the bush - unrelieved green gets a bit monotonous. And then perhaps one of these clever syndicates will get hold of a concession and build a chateau, complete with classical colonnade, Georgian brickwork, central heating, billiard saloon and oiled rimu fittings. The world is full of these clever chaps; sometimes they make money, and sometimes they don’t but generally they help us along the path of Progress. They it is who ensure the advancement of Civilisation; and you are not going to deny that it is a good thing that civilisation should be advanced. Chateaus are better than tents any day; central heating has it all over camp-fires. Te Kooti managed to get away from the Government in the Urewera; but you can't elude Progress, you can't double on civilisation in that simple way. Well, I hope the motorists don't drop too many sardine tins and Kodak film-boxes in their wake that's all.

But I have a debt to pay, and jeremiads won't pay that I doubt if the minor prophets - or their major brothers for that matter - ever found life a paying proposition. But I owe the bush a lot of thanks. It nourishes the soul. Your soul may be a pretty miserable affair in New Zealand, or anywhere; but how much more miserable if you haven't smelt the smell of the wet bush, or forced your way through a tangle of fern and bracken and fallen logs or waded the bush streams or seen an army of tree-ferns marching up some lost and conquered gulley, or glimpsed the rata flaming up a distant height or even, heaven knows! gone on your head over the ubiquitous supple-jack! Ubiquitous or iniquitous, wet or dry, fern or sky-supporting column, friendly or implacable with the concentrated animus of nature, it gets into your blood, it pervades the - well the soul or whatever fills its place. I know a man in England who has travelled Switzerland, and Norway, and Russia; he hated the rest of New Zealand, but one night he got out of bed and spread a desolate spirit out before the embers of his fire and wept over it. He was remembering the bush, and all the waters of Volga or Thames could not wash that memory away. They might silt up a bit perhaps. He had a debt too; and I am glad to think that his was partly mine, and we incurred it in common.

But this doesn't take us to the Urewera, where I piled up a good percentage of my own particular owings. There was the crowd I tramped with, too, golden lads and lasses; scattered now in the ungodly places of the land, where the bush comes not, nor the tree-fern raises its graceful head, where the water runs over the only stony places of the mind, and the hills we lift our eyes to are distant ones - scattered and apart, surrounded by summonses and affidavits, reports and typewriters, cows and butter-factories and school children and families. I owe them something too. They were a good crowd. It was a good Christmas that. And, leaning back in my chair and watching one of those interminable goods trains clank along its banked highroad, past the bottom of our rough and hummocky garden, at last I'm back in the Urewera again.

It was on Christmas Day we came to Waikaremoana I think, over the world's worst road; and for the next couple of days when we didn't have anything better to do, we could stroll down and watch the service-cars ploughing up the mud. Waikaremoana is a lake among a thousand, beautiful - what New Zealand lake is not beautiful? - fantastically bayed and nobly wooded. The gods must have had a great time there once; or perhaps it was a sub-tropical race of titans who threw cliffs and escarpments at one another in their pre-howitzer squabbling. Anyhow, there are the results, Ohirini Bluff with its cleft up which the Maori used to carry his dead, and the rest of them: Mokau, Aniwaniwa and Para-o-koriti melodious trinity of waterfalls, pouring away over their jagged precipices; and the geologists talk about earth-movements all right once upon a time. If you look up the lake you see the Strait of Manaia, where Te Kooti swam the horses across that he stole from Mohaka, on his Wairoa raid, to help him along in his good work. He was a sportsman, though - before he took them across he had a race-meeting in the best style. However, all that's done with now: you can go and stay at Lake House in this year of grace with no danger of getting a tomahawk in the back of your head - or seeing horseraces either. You may with ordinary luck see wild horses and their foals, all dashing trepidation. If you are more enterprising you can start from Waikaremoana and make your way through the bush to the Bay of Plenty, or to Rotorua. A road comes from Rotorua to Ruatahuna, about seventy-two miles. Ruatahuna is a scattered little place, with a post office and a school and a village and a Presbyterian mission, so well spaced out that nothing seems to belong to anything else; and there, or in some part of it, you are in the approximate middle of the Urewera country. The capital, I suppose, is where the prophet Rua exercises his theocratic and polygamous majesty, at Matahi, in the Lower Waimana Valley, where he migrated after that little business with the forces of law and order at Maungapohatu. Strange how we were thrilled by that romantic incident of 1916, in the midst of a European war; but there, you see, it was a change from the mere depressing crime of Lambton Quay and Queen Street. There is a horse-track over the Huiarau ranges from Waikaremoana to Ruatahuna; and then you can make your way to Maungatapohu, and so over another horse-track to Poverty Bay; or you can take to the Whakatane River and see where that lands you.

Our crowd was thirteen in number, and was determined on suicide anyway, or as near as we could get to it. It was just as well, for the Whakatane was in flood that Christmas instead of sinking down to a benignant trickle. So we got up at half-past three on Sunday morning, and the launch took us across the lake to where the Hoporuahine River joins its waters to Waikaremoana. The track goes up the left bank of the river for about three miles and turns into a wide valley, and then you begin to climb the range. I remember that track - I remember its very texture in parts, mingled mud and gravel, and the thick bush on either side, and the sunlight striking down on to the water where we stopped to drink and eat a raisin or two. There's a divinity in the sun playing through the leaves on to a bush stream. There are, or were, reminders of a military road along that track, too, a memorial of the everlasting pursuit of the ever-elusive - I hope the military got some satisfaction out of it. You could hardly expect them to admire the bush. They had even more trouble than the sun in getting through it. Well, the way was plain enough for us, except where the wild cattle had dithered it up. The cattle were led by a white bull, famous in those parts for his independent and bellicose habits, but when we came on him, he made off like a bull whose mind is on different things. And so we climbed the range, about 3,800 feet of it, and saw other ranges, rank on rank of them, stretching out to either horizon; and so we came down the other side to Ruatahuna and camped. We did twenty-five miles that day, which was not bad, for it was blazing hot, and we had heavy swags up. There is a fine shower-bath at Ruatahuna, a waterfall in a grotto, lit up at night by a million glow-worms. Keats would have liked that grotto - Hyperion might have laved his limbs in it, as we did.

We stopped an hour or so at Mata-atua next morning, and were fed like gods on new-made bread and cherries. Mata-atua was a canoe that came over the ocean from Hawaiki with the ancestors of our hosts; the village now is famous for its whare-puni, a meeting-house that is as good as a bride adorned, carved and painted and subtle with work of reeds. We looked at it like men who saw the last flame of a dying fire - but that was before we heard of the Maori Renaissance and an art revived. The fire still burns. They warned us here of the river, but we took a chance. And it wasn't so bad when we came to it. The Whakatane runs cold and fast, but carry a heavy swag and don't trip on the boulders and you're all right. We came before nightfall to Ohaua-te-rangi, another hospitable village, most hospitable indeed and hospitable again. I remember the wild cherries and the two little grinning mischiefs who trod on those branches like birds, to the manifest danger of life and limb, and threw us down great bunches. Their names I forget, but they were nimble nippers. At the other end of the chronological scale was Te Kotahitanga. Does Te Kotahitanga still breathe the air and see the light of the sun? Why not? He survived the muskets of the Government, and he survived the placid intervening years; and here he was, in a frock-coat Gladstone might have worn, or Dick Seddon, and the refulgent halo of a man who has not misspent his youth. For Te Kooti came down over those hills, and combed that pa of fighting men and blood ran merrily in the veins in those days. You didn't drop bombs on your enemies from an aeroplane, or loose hell on them from ten miles away; you chased them like a man, and no doubt became thoroughly exasperated doing so. Well, there's Te Kotahitanga, one of the old school, with his superannuated breech-loader, and a small arsenal of assorted clubs and spears. He never capitulated to the pakeha so far as to learn his language. He'll write his name and give you an account of the campaign though - and eyes still flash.

If you follow our track after Ohaua, you climb a good stiff saddle and miss out two or three bad crossings of the river, but you come down to it in the end just the same. I set out that day to count how many times we forded the river, but somewhere about seventy-seven I got lost (numerically, I mean) and gave it up. Water is wet, and those with whom it comes in contact it wets also; and with a fatal regularity the heavens opened themselves nearly every night and rained. But with a rope and a University forward as anchor you can cross most fords, even if the river is giving a colourable imitation of Niagara. There was one of us, implacably virtuous of speech, who stood on an old tree-trunk by the river-bank that day. That tree-trunk, with the deliberate irony of so-called inanimate nature, rolled over. Virtue became unvirtuously vocal, and collapsed in a gurgle; only a hat remained above the waters, like a good man undismayed. It was very refreshing. It was next day, I suppose, that the really impossible ford presented itself, and we climbed a hill to avoid it. It is a painful memory, that hill; bracken probably grows that way on the hills that trampers scale in Hell; it was above our heads and there was no track. And then we got into bush - not the romantic kind. We looked back at the end of three hours or so and could still see the place we started from. No, the Urewera isn't all beer and skittles.

But that didn't last. There was New Year's Eve at Putere: just half a mile above Putere pa, to be exact. The ford there looked worse than it was, and it was the end of a heavy day. We camped. There are some nights that would make you sentimental over a log of wood. That was one. The river widens out here and flows with the deep sigh of the main flood. We had a big fire, and the sparks went upward with the inevitability of man's trouble, but they were more spectacular. The stars shone, it seemed, with a chastened joy, a remote wonder, as at the re-birth of Time, and there was the silence of a wilderness that listened to its own breathing. That night passed, and the stars, and our fire, and next day, in the early afternoon sun, we gazed up the wide river -valley for the last time. The gravel flats laced with the shining water stretched back into the distance, misty with the heat; the hills went up on either side to meet in a green V at the limit of our vision, and beyond them hung the blue and foldless back-cloth of the sky. That was the Whakatane; it is not forgotten.

And then we were on the metalled road to Ruatoki. Ruatoki is civilisation - anyhow it is if you finished the last of your grub, except sago, the night before. Ruatoki has a store. Its store-keeper is a man of experience and knowledge of the world - knowledge also of the Urewera. He gazed at our womenfolk like one who has received an exclusive revelation. "You girls," he said, and paused for adequate illumination, "are 'eroes!" He gazed again, and addressed his biscuit tins with solemnity and conviction. "Them girls are 'eroes!" he said. Well, we agreed; they were. They were the first pakeha women to tramp through the Urewera, at any rate. And we felt we hadn't done ourselves so badly, for our boots still held out. We had done our little bit of investigation. The surveyors had been up there, and horses had done it all right; but we had sweated over it with those swags. Do the great explorers ever pat themselves on the back - the Magellans, the Doughtys, the Scotts - or is it a monopoly of cocksure youth?

Well, there you are. Not much about the Urewera, descriptive, economic or poetical; but what's the use of rhapsodising? The Urewera has its past, romantic if you want to look at history in a romantic way - somebody will write a romantic novel about Te Kooti someday - and it has its present, wild and not so wild. I hope it has no future, for a future means economic development - that is, the aforesaid clever syndicate and filling-stations. It may be that our country will preserve at least here some last lost refuge for the spirit of her native beauty. But beauty, wild beauty, is a shy visitant, chary of the camera. She flies at a touch.

A Recipe for a Good Fit Trip

Peter Radcliffe

Take one large Northern Crossing, suitably dried in the sun. Take three keen peasants, preferably bursting with energy. Take the 3.56 railcar to Masterton.

Mix the peasants thoroughly in Mitre Flats Hut, sprinkling with mild oaths until 4a.m. when they should be well browned off. At this stage the track should be pounded vigorously until all traces of keenness have disappeared.

Bake in the sun at Tarn Ridge for 30 mins. adding liberal quantities of food and water. Proceed to roll the resulting mess over the remaining tops into the South Ohau. At 7pm insert the resulting jelly into a medium taxi and stew at Levin for ¾ hour.

Add transport to taste and serve with breakfast in bed next day.

Note: The amount of hot air which the finished product liberates is quite remarkable.

Up in the Clouds

Deer and the Tararuas

Mavis Davidson

T'was on the top of Mt. Alpha I met her,

Beneath the shade of a leatherwood tree

sang Paul Powell in the 1930's, parodying 'The Isle of Capri'. Strictly, there has not been a leatherwood tree on the top of Mt. Alpha in living memory, but in the 1930's the alpine shrub zone (consisting principally of Olearia Colensoi 'leatherwood trees') a thousand feet or so below Alpha's summit was in process of being modified by red deer (Cervus elaphus). High altitude grassland and 'scrub' comprise some 53,000 acres of the 300,000 acre Tararua Forest, 258,000 of which are State Forest. As a Forest Park the first in New Zealand, the primary objects of management are protection and recreation.

In 1862 red deer were liberated near Carterton, and in subsequent years their progeny were released along the Tararua foothills, at a bush edge already modified by domestic stock. Predictably, the deer penetrated the forest by way of ridges and spurs, depleting these of palatable plants, and by 1930 when protection was lifted from all deer species, their vanguard was occupying the high tussock grasslands of the main range - yet gullies between ridges on the eastern hills were not yet modified. After the tussockland had been completely occupied tracking of the forest took place, and deer ceased to use the ridge crest tracks which they had shared with the trampers. These tracks tended to become overgrown, a circumstance which was interpreted by some as indicating a reduction of the deer population, whereas it was in line with the innate behaviour of deer in establishing territory. A further inducement to tracking the forest was that the high tussock 'tops' did not provide complete deer range, being under heavy winter snow in earlier years and restricted by bitter weather at other season; since the mid 1940's lighter-snowfall years have allowed the deer greater utilisation of the tussocklands.

At first the alpine 'scrub' would be a formidable barrier to deer but in time they modified it to their requirements. Even today there are areas avoided by deer where one has to force a passage by walking over the top or crawling underneath, both activities being tedious and time consuming, but in the main (as with the forest proper) travel is now unimpeded. Norman Elder’s description of the vegetative cover in 1955 (Tararua, No.9:79-81) comparing it with the 1930's, is illuminating: "It was a jolt to see how the Tararuas have altered. All along the main range, across the Waiohine, the bush was no longer a dark green carpet, but moth-eaten and tattered with scrub and tussock showing pale in the gaps. Some of the biggest gaps on exposed shoulders could be put against the February, 1936, gale, but most of the damage was too widespread and too varied to be caused by this alone. ...further along the range (Holdsworth-Mitre) looking into the head of Dorset and South Mitre Creek, there were more surprises, this time due to deer. ... It is a cherished axiom that Tararua leatherwood, like Tararua weather, is unique and changeless. Now whole belts of leatherwood were dead, dead stems stripped of foliage on bare peat trampled like a stockyard."

On the writer's first crossing of the southern Tararuas in 1935, luxuriant Prince of Wales feather fern (Todea superba) bordered the zigzag on the way from the saddle to the top of Hell’s Gate; in 1945 (following virtual cessation of hunting during the war years) it was feared that this slope would become a scree slide. This was an all time low, for subsequently the area almost imperceptibly started to stabilise, early colonising plants gaining a hold and some species, although depauperated, showing a measure of resistance to browsing.

Minarets and De la Beche from the Franz Josef Glacier, October 1967

In general, over the entire Tararua Forest, the high altitude shrub zone and the high altitude silver beech forest have been severely used by deer; tussock has tended to replace minor species and alpine shrubs in the grassland area, but the tussock itself has suffered a reduction in density and growth. The 'scrub' which grows above the bush is particularly well developed on the west of the range and in the northern Tararuas, promoted by wet, foggy conditions, but on the drier eastern side the scrub belt may not be so well defined (as on Alpha), penetrating both the grassland and the silver beech of the upper forest. Senecio elaeagnifolius has been virtually eliminated from the upper scrub belt, and Olearia colensoi has been greatly reduced. O. colensoi is not a preferred deer food, but nevertheless it has been knocked out by constant browsing, although a cushion form shows great resistance . Under-storey species of the forest have been wiped out, particularly the Pseudopanax (five-finger etc.) species, the dead trunks of which were conspicuous in the 1930's. In assessing the forest today one must know what plants should be there, the palatable species that have been swept away; a jungle of pepperwood (Pseudowintera colorata), rohutu (Neomyrtus pedunculatus), or the crown fern (Blechnum discolor) does not represent regeneration of the original forest but marks areas of extreme modification. Seedlings which would replace the ageing forest and shrub areas are very vulnerable to browsing, and although they may appear in profusion annually, suggesting adequate regeneration, few escape browsing to become saplings.

Obviously, modification of the original vegetation has resulted in a change in the pattern of deer feeding, for whereas initially an animal might obtain its daily quota locally, now it may have to move far afield to obtain minimal sustenance. When the most preferred and browse-vulnerable plants were eliminated, the deer had to make do with less preferred but possibly browse- tolerant vegetation, so that when the 'ice-cream' plants were gone most deer were still able to make a living on foods of lower quality; some, though, have been found dead with full paunches the contents of which have lacked sufficient nourishment to maintain life.

In the classical tradition, other than at the time of the rut, red deer are segregated, the hinds and young of both sexes up to about two years, occupying 'hind country' which is comparatively warmer and more sheltered · than that used by the stags. As the rut approaches the stag groups disintegrate and they tend to appear in pairs, an old male with a young one, the latter acting as sentry while the master stag feeds and rests. At the mating season the stags assemble with the hinds on hind territory where the rut takes place. In addition to this movement which satisfies the physiological and social requirements of the red deer, there is the general movement to lower country in winter.

In the Tararuas, however, red deer behaviour is conditioned by a more variable climate. Here where extremely bitter, gale-force winds and snowfalls may occur in any month of the year, where rainfall is some 200 in. per annum and the tops are in cloud for some 80 days a year, the classical pattern of summer and winter territory is drastically modified; territory is determined not by the altitude which would appear to be the normal life zone for red deer but by those aspects of the Tararuas where warmth and shelter can be obtained. The writer has come upon a mob of red deer basking in the sunshine on the sheltered side of the low stretch of the main range at Macintosh, where the ground was churned up like a stockyard through continued use. Tararua deer spend much of the year in the shelter of the bush itself; indeed some never leave it.

In deer groups as described, whether resting or feeding, there may be a loose association of all age classes of both sexes, although apart from the rut the adults of the two sexes tend to ignore each other. Stags dominate in the rut but this is not leadership - the leader is a mature hind and in time of danger the herd will follow her - stags too. Perhaps the most common feeding unit is a hind, her yearling and her fawn, or an association of several of these units. Above the bushline on Alpha the writer once spent most of a day watching deer through binoculars, and was intrigued to see two hind units of three which were grazing below the track from Alpha to the Dress Circle, keeping constant watch on this track. Either the hinds or the yearlings kept alert to the possibility of danger from this quarter, but they never bothered to look my way and with the wind in my favour I went undetected; at evening a young hunter came into Alpha Hut with three tails from such a group. The hind groups I observed were taking a big chance - 'educated' Tararua deer tend to be nocturnal.

Early reports tell of Tararua stags roaring night and day, but adverse weather conditions and heavy hunting pressure may result in the 'roar' being very poor, few stags roaring on the tops or in the bush, and then only at dusk and daylight, or they may not roar at all – yet the rut goes on and few hinds prove to be yeld. Fawns from the main rut appear towards Christmas which gives them ample time to grow strong enough to cope with the next winter; fawns which may be born at other times have not this advantage.

Few persons penetrated the Tararuas in the years of the initial build-up of red deer and so their establishment before the tramper period went virtually unrecorded. Even in the1920's a trip into the ranges constituted an expedition, unlike the fast 1 ½ day trips of later years, and only casual reports could be made. From these we know that in this decade deer occurred throughout the Tararua mountain system, and that in the next decade even untrained observers considered that they were becoming a menace to the vegetative cover of the high lands.

In 1938/39 Government control operations commenced and except for a minor break continued throughout the 1940's. Very high skin prices attracted private hunters, also, and by 1950 it was estimated that there were some 50% less deer in the Tararuas than there had been in the 1935-40 period. Hunters recorded a drift of deer to the eastern side of the range, particularly into the Waingawa River headwaters.

The 1940's and 1950's showed continued tracking of the forest and shrub zone. At Queen's Birthday weekend 1949 a party including the writer followed a new cut made by a Government hunter through thick scrub from Te Matawai hut down into the Otaki and up onto the main range near Butcher's Knob; in 1959 the writer, accompanying an ecological survey party, was astonished to find only knocked out remnants of scrub, with the area recently invaded by goats. In that year the Tararua Forest Park ranger (A. Geddess) estimated a high population of deer over a large rectangle from Ruapai to Dracophyllum Knob, thence across to Adkin and back to Ruapai. He also reported high density in the tussocklands from Dracophyllum Knob southwards to Vosseler, and in the upper forests of the catchments. Throughout the 1950's, and since, the Forest Service has built huts and river crossing facilities to expedite deer control, and these amenities are available to all who enter the Tararua Forest Park. Today there are some 45 huts in the Park; 14 are Forest Service and the rest have been built by mountain clubs.

Familiar? Ridge south of Peggy's Peak. Tararuas, July 1965.

Deer numbers are difficult to assess. Deer tend to continue to use eaten-out country in winter if it is sheltered, even though their food must be secured elsewhere and at some distance. Following the elimination or reduction of palatables, the deer population has become much more generally dispersed, and more wary, which makes any visual record unreliable in the estimation of population. Nor does recovery of the vegetation, as appeared to occur in the 1950's necessarily mean a drop in total population; it may mean only that there is still new territory to absorb the natural increase of deer and release pressure on earlier modified vegetation. In the Tararuas maximum vegetation modification appears to have occurred in the 1940's, but the initial phase of rapid increase of red deer themselves came to an end a decade earlier, after which there was, in general, a move towards stability of the deer herds. This would tend to relieve the browsing pressure but much of the Tararua highlands needs to be completely free of deer, or any mammal whatever.

There were some (voices crying in the wilderness) to whom it was obvious that the indigenous vegetation of the Tararuas, which evolved in the absence of browsing mammals, must suffer modification if not worse following the establishment of deer. Of course there always has been erosion in the Tararuas, but slips would revegetate quickly, whereas now with sustained animal pressure erosion becomes accelerated. It must be accepted that the virgin forest of the Tararuas belonged to a different biological era from that evolving today under the influence of browsing and /or trampling by deer, and to a lesser extent by goats, pigs, hares and opossums; much of the former forest is gone forever, and the introduced mammals are here to stay.

Constantly applied control measures have resulted in the improvement of some parts of the Tararua Forests and grasslands, or at least a slowing down of degradation, and control must go on to allow regeneration of understorey and promotion of canopy species. The Tararuas long ago became adjusted to wind, snow, tectonic movement, and insect attack; now they must be assisted to cope with the impact of red deer and other mammals.

John Ure, Conservator of Forests, (N.Z.J. For. 15(2):189-95) has the last word: " ...Tararua Forest plays a most important dual role in southern North Island. Upper catchment protection is without question the most important role in view of the vulnerability and high values off site, but the need for recreation and outdoor education of a large, rapidly growing population is such that maintenance of the forest could be justified for this reason on its own."

Ecology in the Tararuas

P. Williams

Trampers around Vosseler recently noted an addition to the local Iivestock in the form of a botanist, one Pete Williams, busying himself with measurements of tussock and soils. Odd, they thought, and sought an explanation.

Research in this area, it appeared, was focused on the ecosystem, the dynamic concept of ecology where plants and animals are considered to be bound up in an irregular but self adjusting flow of energy and materials. The flow of energy through the system is started and maintained by the organic regime - the life within the system. The vegetation absorbs minerals from the soil, traps sunlight energy and incorporates these into complex organic compounds, which all organisms use for survival. Organisms within the soil, including plant roots, break down dead materials and prepare it for recycling - this process helps maintain the soil structure and the ability of the soil to supply nutrients. The whole formed by such systems above and below ground level are termed 'vegetation-soil systems'. This aspect of the whole ecosystem is also control led by the wasting regime and the drift regime. The wasting regime acts on the soils by physically breaking down the parent rock and releasing the minerals by chemical weathering. These are then distributed to other parts of the system or lost in the drainage water. The drift regime embraces the mechanical disturbance of the soil system by inorganic agencies and is important in exposing fresh rock surfaces, ensuring a continuous supply of minerals into the system.

The ecologist orders the variety of the environment by describing certain factors of any particular area. These include the climate, the parent rock that constitutes the soil, the plants and animals available to colonise the site, the relief, the height of the water table and the period over which the system has been functioning, that is, when the organic regime made its impact.

The purpose of this particular study is to determine the affect of these factors on the vegetation-soil system of the snow tussock grasslands. There are three species of true snow tussock in the Tararuas. One of these, Chionochloa rubra or red tussock, occurs only in the northern Tararuas. Nearly everywhere else above the bush there is C. pallens and C. flavescens. The latter is a much darker green and has broad waxy leaves compared with the narrow V shaped leaves on the former.

Many trampers have noticed slumps and trenches, particularly those with tarns in the bottom, along parts of the Main Range. A good example is the one outside Maungahuka Hut. These landforms have proved very useful in studying the snow tussock systems. Systems dominated almost purely by either C. flavescens or C. pallens occur side by side on opposite faces of the slumps. For this reason we can eliminate climate as the major factor determining the pattern, and are able to look more closely at the effect of other factors.

Rock type has only a limited affect on the vegetation as the Tararuas are fairly homogeneous greywacke, with isolated areas of volcanic material. The degree to which parent rock has been altered by weathering influences the state of the systems more than the variation in the original chemical composition. To elucidate the relationship of the soil and grass patterns to the slumps, I will first describe a ridge which does not have slumps or trenches.

A large c. flavescens growing over a stunted c. pallens.

Development of slump trenches

Figure 1.1 shows the pattern of soil and vegetation on a typical Tararua ridge at 4500'. Both sides are covered with C. flavescens associated with Celmisia spectabilis (mountain daisy), Pentachondra pumila (a little heath), Aciphylla dissecta (spaniard) and Carpha alpina (a small sedge). The soils are dark in the upper horizons and have a high proportion of organic matter. In the cold wet environment of the Tararuas, organic matter accumulates faster than it can be broken down and recycled. There are very few stones in the upper horizons because the soils are stable and the drift regime is not important. Thus fewer minerals are being released from freshly exposed rock surfaces than are being removed from the system by the wasting regime. This effect, coupled with the fact that most of the minerals in the system are insolubly bound in the organic matter, means that there are few minerals available to the plants. There is frequently an iron pan in the subsoil and the soil horizons above the pan are low in oxygen, shown by their pale grey colour.

Figure 1.2 (demonstrating a slump pattern), shows that on both sides of the smaller ridge, the material that I consider has actually moved, is covered with vegetation and soil similar to that just described. However, the side of the trench opposite the slumped material and also the trench bottom, are dominated by C. pallens systems, associated with Aciphylla colensor, Astelia nervosa and Olearia colensoi.

The soils are not as dark in the C. flavescens systems, because the coarse gravelly material is freely drained - that is, the water table is usually two to three feet below the surface. Similarly in the trench bottom, the fine alluvium that has washed from the sides of the trench is also well drained, frequently by underground outlets from the trench. The soils lack the pale grey colours associated with C. flavescens systems and do not have iron pans.

An aerial view of West Peak and Hut Mound with slump trench in foreground

The loose nature of the coarse alluvium indicates a more active drift regime. Consequently new surfaces are being constantly exposed on the rock fragments, presenting an additional source of readily available nutrients, particularly phosphorous. The side of the trench with C. pallens is younger than the side with C. flavescens as the latter was already formed when the slumping occurred. Thus C. pallens systems represent youthfulness. With time, iron compounds are mobilised, particularly by compounds produced by the breakdown of the tussock leaves, and precipitated at depth to form iron pans. Soil aeration conditions rapidly deteriorate; the drift regime becomes less important and the wasting and organic regimes take over. As a consequence the available nutrients decline and we are, by this stage, moving towards the kind of systems described for the 'typical' ridge, with C. flavescens replacing C. pallens.

Evidence from sites dated by the rings of Olearia colensoi shrubs, suggests that the change from C. flavescens to C. pallens can take place within sixty years. Over longer periods drainage conditions deteriorate even further and virtually all the minerals are locked into the organic matter. In short, bogs are formed. C. flavescens is replaced by smaller herbaceous species, particularly C. alpina, Schoenus pauciflorus and the cushion bog plant Oreobolus pectinatus. These conditions exist on Table Top, and are diagrammatically represented in Fig. 1 .3. One trench has a volcanic ash shown in the bottom that is believed to have originated about 3400 years ago. This trench also contains a bog, so we can conclude that at least some of the bogs are old.

As a final comment, Pete remarked that indirectly he was studying the growing problem of pollution: the greatest pollutant in New Zealand at present is shingle and silt in our river systems. By gaining a knowledge of the ecosystems in the catchments that feed the rivers, we will be able to manage them more carefully in the future than we have in the past.

National Parks

N.E. Sissons

It is now well known that New Zealand's National Parks are being abused in a most lamentable way. And as we are the trustees of our national heritage this abuse is the intimate concern of every responsible New Zealander. Several organisations and individuals have sought to awaken public awareness to this problem but they rarely get very far - the Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society is dismissed by most as a group of eccentrics whilst individuals such as Sir Edmund Hillary do not get the support they often deserve. Why this situation has arisen and what can be done to rectify it are now seen to be issues of top moral and political priority.

Fortunately there is a dim light at the end of the tunnel. It emanates from the National Parks Act, a source which is all too often dimmed by political and economic rhetoric. The intention expressed by the legislature in s.3( 1) of the National Parks Act is encouraging:

“It is hearby declared that the provisions of this Act shall have effect for the purpose of preserving, in perpetuity as National Parks for the benefit and enjoyment of the public, areas of New Zealand that contain scenery of such distinctive quality or natural features so beautiful or unique that their preservation is in the national interest.” (My italics)

The Act is, however, disappointing both technically and in its application.

The first technical, or legal, fault with the National Parks Act is that the Crown is not bound to abide by the terms of the Act. If it was the Government would require new legislation in order to violate any of its provisions. There are a number of reasons to support the contention that special legislation should be a prerequisite to any proposed violation of the Act: to begin with, such a procedure would at least permit the parties concerned to voice their objections to the proposed violation. The schemes which the Government proposes in violation of the Act are seldom urgent whilst the consequences are often irreversible: there seems therefore to be no justification for avoiding full discussion of the proposal whatever it may be.

Secondly there is some confusion as to the meaning of s.7, the wording of which is somewhat ambiguous. It is headed "(National Parks) Authority to give effect to Government policy" and then reads:

"In the exercise of its powers and functions under this Act the Authority shall have regard to any representations that may be made by the Minister to give effect to any decision of the Government in relation thereto, conveyed to the Authority in writing by the Minister."

This may be read to mean either that the Authority must have regard to representations of the Minister, who in giving the Authority written notification is giving effect to a decision of Government; or that the Authority must give effect to Government decisions as stated by the Minister in writing. Should the true meaning be the latter then the Authority has virtually no independence from the Government and is, potentially at least,no more than a tool for the Government's use. Should the former be the correct reading, (i.e. that the Authority need only consider the Government representations) the Authority would at least have some Statutory independence. The section requires clarification (especially as the headnote seems to run counter to the actual words of the section).

Thirdly there is the question of mining. Section 59 of the National Parks Act states that the Act will not override the provisions of the Mining Act 1926. Accordingly land inside National Parks had no more protection from prospecting or mining than did that outside. In an amendment to the Mining Act in 1962 however this appalling situation was changed and the consent, in writing, of both the Minister of Lands and the Minister of Mining became necessary for prospecting warrants and mining licences. In effect therefore the Ministers of Lands and Mining were given a power of veto when an application was made for a prospecting warrant and again upon application for a mining licence.

A new Act is to be passed in the near future however and it will slightly weaken the position of National Parks with respect to mining operations. Under its provisions the Ministers' power of veto will exist only when the prospecting warrant is issued, for such a warrant will give limited automatic mining rights. This means that when an application is made for a prospecting warrant, the National Parks Authority before advising the Minister, will have to make a very thorough check on the implications not only of prospecting but also of actual mining. Such lengthy investigations have not so far been necessary as no mining licenses have yet been requested for land in National Parks.

With a relatively high percentage of the country's total land area in National Parks, the Government is understandably reluctant to ban completely all prospecting in National Parks. It would do well though to follow the North American lead of establishing a time limit on prospecting - perhaps 1980 - after which National Parks would become free forever from the threat of mining.

From a conservationist's point of view these weaknesses in the Act are overwhelming and render it totally inadequate. The contrast with US legislation is revealing: under the Antiquities Act violation of a National Park requires an Act of Congress, thus ensuring the people of an opportunity to object. Furthermore if people request an investigation then one must be made. In the 1950's alone fourteen attempts to build dams in National Parks were thwarted under this Act. It is wrong that New Zealand legislation does not ensure full discussion among all interested parties before a decision is made. Reversing a bad decision is often impossible and always expensive. This reality must obviously tip the scales heavily against those who seek to reopen the matter at a post mortem inquest. Had the Government investigated the opposition to the Manapouri project, for example, it is very doubtful that it would have entered its present agreement with Comalco (whatever that may be). Having done so however it is naturally reluctant to force a renegotiation of that agreement.

Leatherwood blancmange: the masochist's delight

Though it is weak, the National Parks Act is not the real source of the problem. The underlying problem which must be resolved is essentially a political one. If the government wants to raise Lake Manapouri to generate power then it will do so. If it thinks it will profit from the exploitation of minerals in the Northern Olivines it will give its consent to an American prospecting and mining firm. Furthermore this must always be so - regardless of how strong the National Parks legislation is - for the Government can always repeal an inconvenient Act or Section. There is nothing wrong or unreasonable about that. What is unfortunate though is that successive New Zealand Governments seem to have considered only one criterion in reaching a decision: economics. Temporarily propping up the economy seems to be more important than retaining scenic beauty. Short term economic gains are given higher priority than long term conservation.

Such governmental disregard can be stopped however - by the people. In the United States there is now relatively little attempted interference with National Parks because the allowing of such interference has become politically inexpedient. The public jealously protects its National Parks. What the New Zealand public lacks is interest and education. This raises the basic question as to what a National Park is. To date there has not been sufficient thought given to this issue in New Zealand. There is no accepted view of what National Parks are or ought to be and this reduces the chances of cohesive public response to proposed violations. In the US by contrast there are definite ideals and any attempt to violate these meets with a hostile reaction. The Manapouri controversy has helped to awaken us a little, but it is only the first step.

The Manapouri issue has particular significance for National Parks. Prior to 1960 the Government had shown almost complete disregard for scenic value in areas outside National Parks, having exploited Lake Waikaremoana, the Aratiatia Rapids, Geyser Valley at Wairaki, Lake Hawea and Lake Monowai to mention but a few. Over Manapouri there has been revealed the same blatant disregard for areas inside Natiorial Parks. (Note: when water levels in Lakes Waikaremoana and Monawai were adjusted they were not in National Parks - the areas concerned were gazetted some years later). Furthermore, the whole idea of the Manapouri hydro development scheme emanated from the Government itself. The Minister of Industries and Commerce travelled to Australia to try to gain the interest of Consolidated Zinc Ltd. in the proposed scheme. From the very beginning there has never been the slightest doubt that this proposal was a serious violation of the National Parks Act.

Whatever its final outcome, it is to be hoped that at least two things wiII result from the Manapouri affair. The first is the realisation on the part of the Government that it can no longer destroy areas designated as possessing such great scenic or scientific attraction that their destruction can never be in the national interest, without thought of public reaction. The second is the hope that the Manapouri struggle will stimulate New Zealanders to think about National Parks and to form some definite ideals with which it expects the Government to comply. If the Government becomes economically over-exuburent it is to be hoped that the people will not.

The problems related to preserving National Parks are in some ways even more acute in the case of small encroachments which do not gain the public eye. A television relay station, a line of pylons, a small extension to a road - things which just 'happen' before anyone knows much about them let alone has a chance to object. A good example of this may be seen from the Desert Road where in places, three rows of pylons run almost parallel to the Park boundary and nearly a mile inside it. As if this were not sufficient, the pylons are situated on the western side of the road thus placing them between the main scenic attraction of the park - the mountains - and the motorist! The explanation for not putting the lines at least on the other side of the road and preferably out of the Park altogether is alarming: the Army, which has an installation on the eastern side of the road, argued that placing the pylons on its side of the road would reduce the area available for tank manoeuvres. It is enough to question whether training tank drivers carries greater benefit for the public than allowing people to appreciate their natural scenic heritage. But in insisting that its tank drivers had only that one narrow block of land in which to train the Army pressed credulity to breaking point. And in letting the Army have its way, the New Zealand Government endorsed the Army's warped values.

What then can be done to correct the imbalance which has occurred in Government thinking? The people have a need for, and a right to, a full, unreserved flow of information about proposed violations of National Parks. In 1962 the Government went some of the way towards ensuring the availability of information when it established the Nature Conservation Council. The major function of this Council is to investigate fully representations from individuals and organisations and to advise the Government accordingly. It may publish any recommendation it makes.

The exact authority which the Council has in dealings with Government Departments is not accurately stated in the Act. Section 15 says that:

"Any information or assistance which is required by the Council for the purpose of enabling it to carry out its functions or to exercise its powers, and which is available or can reasonably be made available from any Government Department, shall not be unreasonably withheld." (my italics)

It is clear though that the Council has no absolute right to information. Whilst departmental co-operation has so far been excellent, the condition as to reasonableness considerably undermines the Council's authority. Despite this lack of real authority the Council has made a substantial contribution towards restraining Government interference with National Parks as its recommendations have been well respected.

The beginnings of a climb

A viable alternative to the Nature Conservation Council, or perhaps a complementary arrangement, has been suggested by Mr. G.D. Bowden (an American Conservationist who was concerned with drafting conservation legislation in California and who is at present lecturing in Planning Law at VUW). Whilst noting the pre-eminent need for the education of the public, he says that a coherent ideal for National Parks ought to be worked out and enacted. Every proposed violation of that Act (which would be a definitive one) should then require a public hearing before an Administrative Tribunal. The Tribunal would have an absolute right to information and interested parties would be assured of sufficient time to prepare representations in the light of that information. The decision of the Tribunal would not be final: it would only advise the Government - in the same way as a Commission of Inquiry. However this is of little consequence as the object of the scheme is not that the final decision be taken from the Government; rather that the Government be forced to disclose all information before it makes a decision. In this way all interested parties would have access to the relevant information and a full discussion would be ensured.

There is then much to do. The Government must be persuaded to strengthen an Act which at present it can not keep itself to, and preferably to establish a Tribunal to which it would have to divulge all its information; the pubIic must be educated as to the meaning of National Parks; and people must be prepared to take strong action whenever a violation is proposed. The objection to the raising of Lake Manapouri is a start: let us hope that it leads to a general enlightenment.

Geology of the Tararuas and the Rimutaka Range

S.H. Eager & H.W. Wellman

Geology is like history: one's certitude of events decreases with time. The formation of the Tararua Range may be grouped into three phases. First, the period of time when the strata forming the range were deposited. Second, the time when the strata were compressed, folded and eroded to a flat surface. Finally, the time when the eroded surface was itself folded and uplifted to produce the mountain range of the present day.

In the first stage there was a long submarine trench in which the strata accumulated. It was probably like the trench that lies off the west coast of South America today, but in the case of the Tararuas there was land to the west, and a line of volcanoes with the sea to the east. Sediment accumulation was essentially intermittent and catastrophic. Evidence for this is the alternating layers of siltstone and sandstone which is the most striking feature of the greywacke strata of which the range is almost entirely composed. The siltstone accumulated slowly from fine material carried in suspension into the sea, whereas the sandstone accumulated rapidly from turbidity currents which swept along the sea bed, originating from slides close to the land. The sandstone contains numerous minute plant fragments that have been washed from the land by the rivers of that time.

Within the greywackes there are a few bands of red or green pillow lavas from the volcanoes west of the trench, and thicker bands of red or green siltstone (i.e. a mixture of volcanic ash and normal sediments).

The trough started to form in the Permian, but judging from the few fossils that have been found, the rocks of the Tararua Range are all considerably younger – uppermost Triassic in age. Fossils found in Otaki Gorge consist of one species Monotis aff. jakutica. There must be many more fossils remaining to be found in the ranges. To find them is important. It is just a matter of knowing what the likely fossils look like and then keeping your eyes open for them.

The only evidence within the range for the second stage is that the rocks are strongly deformed and now dip steeply. Deformation is likely to be complex and intense, but, as no part of the range has been mapped in detail, this is not known with certainty. Nor is it known when the strata were folded. It probably happened on several occasions. Some of the folding may be due to the strata having slumped downslope shortly after deposition.

The evidence is more conclusive for the third stage, that is, for the growth of what is now the Tararua and Rimutaka Range. Information is entirely geomorphological: from summit heights and the uplifted shorelines on the Cook Strait coast.

If the main peaks of the Tararua-Rimutaka Range are plotted on a map and the heights contoured, it will be found that the heights are concordant. They are not all of the same height, but none are far from a simple arched surface, with the crest extending from the coast east of Cape Turakirae in an almost straight line through the Rimutaka Saddle tothe Manawatu Gorge. At a distance the concordance shows clearly from the ground, and the southern part can be seen to advantage from the hills of Wellington.

The surface is important for determining how and when the Tararua-Rimutaka Range formed. The degree of concordance is excellent and the form of the surface is similar to oil-field anticlines, and, except for its height, similar to the anticlinal uplift caused by the 1931 Hawkes Bay Earthquake. The concordance is thus unlikely to have been formed by the erosion of the existing mountain range and is considered to be older and to represent a once-flat surface, from which the range grew by successive uplifts. Traces of the flat surface still remain in the highest part of the Tararua Range. The surface cannot be dated exactly, but, as it extends over upper Tertiary strata and maybe over early Quaternary strata, it is probably a million or so years old.

Successive stages in the growth of the Rimutaka Range show as a flight of marine benches (see photo) on the east side of the mouth of the Orongorongo River. Including the youngest bench, which is not far above sea level (10m.), there are six benches in all. The highest is not far below the level of the erosion surface (250m.) Uplift, however, did not take place by six sudden jumps for the individual benches mark the changes in sea level of the last few million years. When the climate was cool, caused by a glacial period, water from the oceans accumulated in the large ice caps of Fennoscandia and Canada. The level of the sea then dropped. When the climate changed the ice melted and the level of the sea rose. The benches were cut when the rise of the sea was slightly higher than that of the land and the difference in level between the successive benches is the amount the land rose between successive interglacials.

Until the culmination of the last glacial, about 20,000 years ago, the Tararua Range may not have been high enough to be glaciated. It then just exceeded the height of the snowline. Snow accumulated and a small glacier resulted which flowed east from the highest part of the range to erode Park Valley. Adkin (1947) was the first to recognise that the valley had been glaciated. At the onset of the last interglacial it warmed, the sea level again rose, and the lowest bench along the coast was formed. About 6,000 years ago the rise in sea level ceased and the rise of the land then commenced to exceed that of the sea. The sea then retreated and beach ridges formed on the marine bench. The beach ridges are best developed for 2 km on each side of Cape Turakirae. Except for short distances where they are buried under screes, the ridges are continuous and they are thus the same age from end to end. There are six beach ridges and their height can be determined within a decimetre or so.

As with the marine benches, an intermittent phenomenon is needed to explain them. The 1855 Earthquake provides the answer. The lowest conspicuous ridge was forming prior to the earthquake and its formation was curbed by the earthquake uplift. The greatest uplift, about 3m, was at the crest of the Rimutaka Range as defined by the summit heights, and it decreases westwards, being about a metre at Wellington Harbour. In the opposite direction the uplift was small or negative a few kilometres to the east and a rapid decrease in uplift is inferred across the line of the Wairarapa Fault, which lies about a kilometre to the east of the crest of the Rimutaka Range.

It is assumed that the other five beach ridges were formed in the same way as the last. Six major earthquakes are inferred for the last six thousand years. One of the largest uplifts was the one immediately prior to that of 1855. At the crest of the range the uplift was about 10m and the earthquake would have been considerably greater than that of 1855. If a constant rate of tilting is assumed the earthquake would have taken place in about 1500. As might be expected, the older and higher beach ridges are tilted more than the lower and younger ones, the point of maximum uplift being the crest of the range as defined by summit heights. For the last 6,000 years the rate of tilting at the coast on the western side of the range has been at the rate of 30 degrees per million years. The summit height surface slopes at only 7 degrees and would thus be only 250,000 years old if tilting had started suddenly and at the 30 degrees per million year rate. The start of the tilting is more likely to have been gradual rather than sudden and the surface is thus probably older, and probably a million or so years old.

The rate at which uplift has taken place is less easily determined than the rate of tilting. Tilting is relative to the vertical, and all that is required is that the sea was as level in the past as it is now! A datum level is required to determine uplift. The level of the sea has changed and was lower during the glacial periods than at present. It was probably about the same height as now during the interglacials and, if it is assumed to have been about the same level as now for the last 6,000 years of the present interglacial, then the uplift rate for the crest of the range is about 4m per thousand years.

Tilting and uplift are only part of the deformational history of the Tararua Range - Strike-slip movement on the two main faults is equally important. The Wairarapa Fault lies to the east of the range and has already been mentioned. The other, the Wellington Fault, is even better known. The two faults are parallel, strike north-east and are slightly oblique to the north-north-east striking crest of the Tararua-Rimutaka Range. Both faults are dextral, (that is, if you were astride one of the faults when it moved, you would be swung to your right), and both are downthrown to the east.

The Wairarapa Fault defines the eastern side of the Rimutaka-Tararua Range as far north as Waiohine River and then leaves the edge of the range and heads for Napier. At Waiohine River it displaces a flight of terraces cut in alluvium, that built up during the last glaciation some 20,000 years ago. The snow line and the timber line were then about 1.2 km lower than at present. During the warming to the present interglacial the timberline rose, erosion decreased, and the river cut down through its gravels. The faulted terraces are one of the best examples in the world and show progressive displacement with increasing age of terrace. For the oldest displaced feature, about 20,000 yrs old, the uplift is 15m, and the dextral displacement 99m.

The Wellington Fault defines the eastern side of Wellington Harbour and the eastern side of the Hutt depression. It becomes less well-defined within the centre of the Tararua Range but probably reappears to the north to define the eastern side of the northern part of the range. The nature of the Wellington Fault is best shown at Harcourt Park, Upper Hutt, where the terraces of the Hutt River are displaced by the fault. As already indicated the displacement is dextral and down to the east.

The uplifted part of the faulting is part of the uplift pattern of the range already described. It is clear that folding and faulting both play a part in uplift, but the detailed relationship between the two is not yet understood.

The dextral displacement on the Wellington and Wairarapa faults is part of the dextral displacement of the Alpine Fault Zone, and extends for the whole length of New Zealand and beyond. It is directly related to the pattern of sea-floor spreading which is taking place on the oceanic rises of the world at a rate of 20 mm to 50 mm per year. A retriangulation just completed, partly within the Tararua Range, some 40 years after the original triangulation, shows that dextral movement is still taking place. Relief of stress by slip on one or both of the faults is inevitable in the near geological future.

The geological history of the Tararua Range from the formation of its rocks until the present day is thus largely one of high mobility.

The outline of the history is probably established, but most of the detail needs to be filled in. More fossils are needed, the position of the Wellington Fault within the range needs to be established clearly, and the structure of the range needs to be mapped in detail. Only those who tramp the range can do this work.

Refs. ADKIN, G. L. 1949: The Tararua Range as a Unit of the Geological Structure of New Zealand. Trans R. Soc. N.Z. 77(5): 260-272 5 figs.

Appendix

OFFICERS OF THE CLUB

For over twenty years, from the inception of the club until 1954, Professor E.J. Boyd-Wilson was President. Professor Bailey then took his place until 1967; A. G. Bagnall was President in 1968, and in 1969 and 1970, Tom Clarkson. This year John Thomson is President. Other office-holders are listed below.

	Chairman	Secretary	Chief Guide
1922	J.E. Myers	A.W. Wright
1923	J. Tattersall	L. Richardson
1924	J. Tattersall	L. Richardson
1925	S.A. Wiren	W.H. Jolliffe
1926	S.A. Wiren	W.H. Jolliffe
1927	S.A. Wiren	E. Beaglehole
1928	S.A. Wiren	S.J. Lambourne
1929	S.A. Wiren	G.A. Peddie
1930	S.A. Wiren	W.K. McGavin
1931	none	F.B. Thomson
1932	none	F.B. Thomson
1933	none	C.J. Read
1934	none	A.G. Bagnall
1935	none	A.R. Perry	M. Coup
1936	none	C.E. Shaw	J. Croxton
1937	none	P.S. Powell	J. Croxton
1938	none	R.L. Meek	A. Oliver
1939	none	Mrs. Dora Bagnall	R. Collin
1940	none	P.S. Powell	J.B. Butchers
1941	R. Collin	B.R. Jones	A.O. Macleod
1942	R. L. Oliver	D. Saker	F. Evison
1943	R. Evison	R. Oliver	Ruth Fletcher
1944	J. Witten-Hannah	M. Benge	J.R. Jackson
1945	R. McLaughlin	C.E. Bradstock	P. McGill
1946	A .O. MacLeod	C.E. Bradstock	M. Murray
1947	K. Johnstone	C.E . Bradstock	M. Murray
1948	C.E. Bradstock	Jeanette Murray	H. Evison
1949	R. Ellis	Jeanette Murray	P. Gardner
1950	D. Trudgeon	Jeanette Murray	R. Knox
1951	B. Casey	Ruth Steiner	R. Martin
1952	B. Casey	Ruth Steiner	R. Martin
1953	W. Adams	Ruth Steiner	H.C.A. Somerset
1954	E. Offner	Mrs Ruth Mason	H.C.A. Somerset
1955	E. Offner	Mary Erdos	D.B. Somerset
1956	H.J. Wakelin	Dawn Radley	D.B. Somerset
1957	P. Campbell	Dawn Radley	D.B. Somerset
1958	D. Beaglehole	Dawn Radley	J.E.P. Thomson
1959	P. Dwyer	Kerry Reidy	I.D. Cave
1960	J.G. Nicholls	Kerry Reidy	I.D. Cave
1961	J.G. Nicholls	K.B. Popplewell	I.D. Cave
1962	R. Hoare	Linda Redmond	W.R. Stephenson
1963	S. Moore	Margaret MacPherson	W.R. Stephenson
1964	N. Bullock	Helen Henderson	M. Ellis
1965	N. Bullock	T. Clarkson	P. Barry
1966	T. Clarkson	C. Little	P. Barry
1967	P. Burgess	C. Little	T. Clarkson
1968	P. Burgess	Helen Jemmett	T. Clarkson
1969	P. Burgess	J. de Joux	P. Radcliffe
1970	N. Lupton	Mary Stewart	P. Radcliffe
1971	A. Wright	Margi Keys	J. Keys

A RECORD OF MAJOR TRIPS 1921-1970

Easter, August and Christmas, 1921-1949

	Easter	August	Christmas
1921		1st weekend trip, to Orongorongos (Sept)
1922
1923	National Park		National Park - E.J. Boyd-Wilson
1924	Putangirua Pinnacles		Urewera - S.A. Wiren
1925		Tararuas - S.A. Wiren
1926			Mt. Arthur - K. Griffen
1927	Mangahoe		National Park
1928	Waitewaewae-Waiopehu		National Park
1929	Tararuas	Totara Flats	National Park - G.A. Peddie
1930	Kapiti	National Park - Lambourne	Spensers
1931	Kapiti - G. Oliver		Dee Valley
1932	Eketahuna-Kaitoke	Kapakapanui	Otira - Bill Read
			Taupo - Nat. Park - Main Trunk Line
1933	Egmont		Spensers - F.B. Thompson
			Pelorus Sound - F. Eggers
1934	Kapiti	National Park - C. Stuart	Hollyford - D. Viggers
1935	Tararuas	National Park	Waimak and Wilberforce - D. Viggers
			Kaimanawas - R. Perry
1936	Egmont	National Park	Spensers - A. Garwich
1937	Tararuas	National Park	Arthur's Pass - P.S. Powell
1938	Mitre Flats	Dawson Falls - A.P. Oliver	Lewis Pass - R. Chorlton
1939	Kapiti - W. Bradshaw	National Park - R. Collin	Waimak - A.P. Oliver
1940	Tararuas	National Park - J.B. Butchers	Waimak - J. Witten-Hannah
1941	Kapiti - S. Lowe	National Park - A.O. MacLeod	Godley - R. Collin, J.B. Butchers
1942		Arthur's Pass - Ruth Fletcher
1943		Arthur's Pass - R.L. Oliver	Cobb Valley - M. Benge
1944	Tararuas	Arthur's Pass - B. Cotti	Waimak - A.O. MacLeod
1945		Arthur's Pass - R.J. McLauglin	Wilkin - J.B. Butchers
1946	Northern Crossing - B. Milburn	Dawson Falls - W. Te Whiti	Hopkins - F. Evison
		National Park - B. Milburn	Waimak - J. McCreary
1947	Tararuas	Dawson Falls	Spensers - J.B. Butchers
1948	Allaway-Dickson Hut	National Park - B. Milburn	Spensers - R. Ellis
			Allaway-Dickson Hut - J. Matthews
1949	Allaway-Dickson Hut - W. Cameron	National Park - P. Gardner	Dart-Rees - T. Qualter

Christmas Trips, 1950-1970

1950	Dart-Olivines-Hollyford
	Graham Saddle
	Spensers	D. Trudgeon
1951	Edward-Hawden-and Three Pass
	Copland Valley
1952	Dart-Olivines-Hollyford-Routeburn	H.C.A. Somerset
	Aspiring-Dart
1953	Spensers	T. Mowbray
	Urewera	D. MacAlister
	Matukituki
1954	Taramakau-ThreePass	T. Mowbray
	Waimakariri	Carter and D. Somerset
	Milford-Earnslaw	Offner, Gerrard, Ellis
1955	Matukituki-Dart-Rees	H.C.A. Somerset
	Spensers	G. Claridge
	Hopkins	D. Somerset
	Matukituki-Waipara-	Carter, Milleward, Rogers & Somerset
1956	Olivine Ice Plateau-Arawata	D. Somerset
	Godley-Tasman	H.C.A. Somerset, Wakelin & Thomson
1957	Spensers	K. Findley
	Rees-Dart	J. Thomson
1958	Hopkins-Landsborough-Douglas	J. Thomson
	Dart-Olivines-Barrier	K. Findlay
1959	Dart-Olivines; Homer	I.D. Cave
	Harris Saddle	Jane Smith
	Hermitage	Cave, Nicholls & Gill
1960	Hopkins	J. Nicholls
	Tapuaenuku
1961	Rees-Dart-Routeburn	W.R. Stephenson
1962	Matukituki-Dart-Routeburn	R. Heave
	Hollyford-Olivine Ice Plateau-Dart	S. Reid, G. Norris
	Darrans	Reid, Barry, Norris
	Landsborough Mueller	W.R. Stephenson
	Spensers	G. Norris
1963	Otoko-Hooker	W.R. Stephenson
	Spensers
1964	Matukituki-Dart-Hollyford	J. Rhodes
	Three Pass
1965	N.W. Nelson	C. Little
	Dart-Olivine Ice Plateau-O'Leary Pass	M. Heenan
	Wilkin	S. Smythe
1966	Wilkin-	D. Greig
	Hollyford-Olivine-Dart-Rees
	Rakaia-Strachan Pass-Wanganui
	Spensers	T. Waghorn
	Rees-Dart	P. Radcliffe
1967	Waimakariri-Three Pass	R. Gooder
	Waikaremoana	B. Radford
	Arthur's Pass	N.K. Whitten
	Bracken Snowfield	Gooder, Bolt, Robson and Kyle
	Kaweka-Kaimanawas	G. Edmunds
	Aspiring	Clarkson, Bolt & Nankervis
1968	Garden of Eden-Godley-Havelock	Caddie, Allan, Burgess, Jones
	Tasman	Radcliffe, Gooder, Bolt, Eggers
	Wilkin
1969	Tutuko	Radcliffe, Gooder, Henshall
	Copland Pass-Welcome Pass-Landsborough-Mueller	B. & N. Sissons, Lesley Bagnall, J. Keys
	Clyde-Rakaia-Whitcombe	Bolt
1970	Huxley-Ahuriri-Hunter	B. Davis
	Aspiring-Arawata-Olivine Ice Plateau-Hollyford	Lesley, B. & N. Sissons, Mary Atkinson, J. Keys
	Whataroa-Godley	A.Wright, A.Lawrenson, G.Todd

Illustrations

Mt Pollux from the Wilkin River	John Rundle	frontispiece
Tararua tops: Arete from Pukematawai	M.M. Davidson	7
Summer in the Orongorongo Valley	John Gates	7
Ross Gooder leading a Very Severe	P.K. Radcliffe	8
Mt Ward and the North Elcho, Jan 1970	John Gates	11
South face of Mt Hicks, Mt Dampier and the Sheila face of Mt Cook	Ben Sandilands	14
Tawhai Hut, November 1934.	C.J. Read	21
The patent method for transporting timber	Ron Ellis	22
Progress on A-D	Ron Ellis	22
Allaway-Dickson Hut in all its pride, 1956	John Thomson	23
Cone Bridge, 1970	P.K. Radcliffe	25
1934 Christmas trip party		33
Waimakariri, 1926		33
1937-38 Christmas trip party. Arthur's Pass	Phil Barnes	33
1925 Christmas trip party. Ureweras	J.C. Beaglehole	36
1941-42 VUCTC party at Godley Hut		36
Prof. E.J. Boyd-Wilson		36/37
1950's party in the Waingawa river		37
1970 Freshers' Trip at lunch	J.R. Keys	37
Base camp in the Waimakariri 1940-41		41
Tararuas in winter. View north from Holdsworth, 1935	C.J. Read	43
Can a primus compete?	P.K. Radcliffe	45
Prof. Boyd-Wilson in the canoe he built. Clarence, 1931	C.J. Read	47
1925 Urewera party crossing the Whakatane River		50
Minarets and De la Beche	John Gates	55
Ridge south of Peggy's Peak, July 1965	John Gates	57
A large C. plavescens growing over a stunted C. pallens	Pete Williams	59
Development of slump trenches (diagram)	Pete Williams	59
A slump trench north of Anderson's Hut	Pete Williams	59
An aerial view of West Peak and Hut Mound with slump trench in foreground	Pete Williams	60
Leatherwood blancmange	John Gates	63
The beginnings of a climb	Ben Sandilands	65
Marine benches on West side of Orongorongo River	D.W. McKenzie	67
Beach ridges at Cape Turakirae.	D.W. McKenzie	68