bushball (hey, it ended up being a real tramp)

By Michael, 12 September 2009

Bushball. An hour’s walk in, party hard, an hour out. Simple. And to a social tramper like me, lazy, unfit, pretty much only in it for the partying, an ideal prospect. I could leave to others the dirty work of carrying the generator, the petrol, the keg into the bush (and then feel bad about it afterwards). Other, harder men than me. And harder women, too. The day of bushball – a grey, wet, cold Saturday in May. Windy. A thick blanket of cloud – that wonderfully evocative term ‘clag’ -- hugging the earth close. Someone said later it was a once-a-year storm that weekend. Yay. Packed, wondered about the weather, thought vaguely about having a nice quiet one that weekend instead, got in the car anyway. Found myself at Hunter car park. Could still have turned back then, plenty of cars there but not many takers. Instead, offered a ride to Emily, a former student of mine (thought to myself how disgracefully old I was getting), her friend, whose name I forget, and Gemma. Off to Rimutaka forest park! Of course, a too-long stop at Petone Pak ‘n’ Save along the way. Through Wainui, into the wops, to the turn-off, across the placid ford just before the Catchpool car park without giving it a second’s thought. Overcast sky, wet ground, but no rain. Made good time on the walk in. Reached the river before dark, nearly in flood but not quite there yet. Could still have turned back. The crossing surprisingly easy, given the state of the river. That wind, blowing hard up the valley straight off the Strait and nearly sweeping me off my feet. Putting up the tent would be fun. Luckily I had help from Briar (cheers Briar!). Then the rain, harder and harder. The wind, harder and harder. The sky, darker and darker. Good thing we had a nice warm hut. Outside, the southerly blast, branches ripped from trees, someone’s tent blown away, fly attached to the hut ripped off, flapping wildly in the wind like a giant, demented bat. Inside cocktails, ball gowns, shirts and suits and ties, a disco ball, a strobe light – and a flush toilet. Luxury! Free-flowing booze. Drunk in the bush. And a hangover in the bush the next day. The drunken stagger through driving rain to the tent. Everything soaked. Puddles of water in the tent. How did that happen? I left the door shut all evening. Rain has a way of getting everywhere, though, especially to where it’s least wanted. The morning after the night before. Feeling vaguely unpleasant, but not too bad. More than could have been said for the weather, or the river. Absolutely pissing down. Huge logs being dragged downstream by the powerful current, limbs sticking up like the arms of a drowning man, snagging on sandbanks, the enormous force of the river pushing them free again. Shit. No way we could cross that. Ended up taking a half-maintained overgrown old bush track to a 4WD track that would take us to the coast, where we could hitch-hike back to fetch the cars. A five hour walk. With my pack. And my tent, waterlogged now and ludicrously heavy, far too bulky to fit in my pack. Began the long trek to the coast feeling miserable and sorry for myself. Should’ve bloody well stayed home. Multiple stream crossings. Not just any stream crossings, either. The first one down a five-metre bank and up another bank on the other side. Would’ve been all right in summer, without the rain and the mud. Would’ve been all right with only a pack, without a heavy tent keeping one of my hands busy, and the rest of me unpleasantly unbalanced. Would’ve been all right if I were not right in the middle of a column of thirty or forty people churning the muddy banks to slippery mush. Much scrabbling. Too far up and too slippery to get back down to try again without falling. And too far from the top to grab the hand offered me. A commotion beside me. Craig has found a far simpler route about five metres from where I am and strolls nonchalantly to the top, with everyone else, witness to my difficulties, following. Somehow I reach the top. A few minutes of mercifully flat ground. Then another stream crossing. Rob and Adam, the poor bastards pushing the wheelbarrow with the keg to the coast, coming back past me, having given up on their crazy enterprise and taking it back to the hut to pick it up some other day. I really can’t blame them. Finally made it to the 4WD track, my silly tent still weighing me down. Everyone else racing ahead of me. Catch up to them periodically when they’re resting. Gemma, until her asthma starts to act up, kindly shares the load with me. Slow going. Kate takes pity on my plight, and offers to attach my tent to her pack, where it’d be much easier to carry. I make a show of protest, but really I’m glad to be rid of the bloody thing (cheers Kate!). Now the long trek to the coast. And at last, the sea! Just a wee wait now until we can get back to the cars. Turns out to be forty minutes waiting in the cold wind. The second-coldest I’ve ever been. Everyone else probably disconcerted by my chattering teeth and shivering, wondering if I’m going to get hypothermic. A horribly uncomfortable ride back to the car park in the back of someone’s van, but I don’t think I’ve ever been as grateful to someone as to the two guys who picked us up. At last we’d be out of there. Twenty-four hours of solid rain, though, and the ford’s nearly waist deep, roaring, churning. Another river crossing. How the hell am I going to get my car out of here. Jeremy at his van, his plan to pile it full of rocks to weigh it down and drive across, hopefully without being swept away. The struggle to warm up in the back of his van, then a hair-raising crossing. Now a miracle. A man with a 4WD and a tow-bar offering to tow us all across. A good hour before it’s my turn. Pitch-dark now. Over in a couple of seconds. A little bit of water around my feet, and the car smells of river for weeks. The things I’ve put that poor car through – 2,800km around the South Island in the summer of ’07-’08, a hub cap stolen by a kea (or perhaps some redneck South Island hubcap-stealing gang, onselling the things to the Russian mafia for the lucrative Eastern European hubcap black market), then a fried engine near Nelson in December 2008, and innumerable metalled roads, overloaded drives up hills far too steep, and that trip early this year up to Jerusalem on the Whanganui River along about 50km of gravel road. One final adventure. Adam stops us (Gemma’s in the car with me) at the gate to tell us the police have been called about a missing person, called ‘Emily,’ and did we know anything about her? A moment of panic before I realise I’d been talking to her just half an hour earlier and that she’d left safely on a previous car. Later turned out to have been only overzealous parents who hadn’t been left with a contact number. Phew. Back to Wellington, through rain pouring again, having proved once more that there’s many a harder man (and harder woman) than me in the tramping club.