| Leader | Mentor | Understudy | Tail Ender | |
| Standards | Glenys | Graham | Brent | Dave B |
| Alternates | Bev | Wendy | Ali | Min |
Stats: see below
The bus left the Bishopdale carpark at the early time of 8:00 to give the Standards a fighting chance at knocking off Mt Oxford. I, however, today was and will forever be an Alternate whenever Mt Oxford is on offer thanks to past distant history of repeatedly and unsuccessfully trying to “Knock the bastard off.” Another good reason to avoid said Mt Oxford was that this was my first tramp in about two months (daughter’s wedding in the UK, thanks for asking, yes, it was absolutely wonderful, I’ve got some photos here somewhere…). So, a clear, sunny, windless day saw us heading out along Tram Road with the crisp snow-covered foothills ahead. We reached the Cooper’s Creek carpark on Mountain Road out the other side of Oxford and off we set at 9:20 to walk to Ryde Falls and back. We were joined by a new visitor who added to the growing Peter collective.
It’s a great walk, is Ryde Falls, with a bit of everything. You start off out in the open, climb over a bluff or two as you head upstream, then after about 20 minutes you turn hard left and start into the bush which is mixed but mostly secondary growth beech with all that lovely honey dew. And no wasps at this time of year, yay. There’s a fair bit of upping and downing through the bush and you mustn’t be confused by a couple of intersections but if you read the signs you will head the right way and eventually get to Ryde Falls. Simple.
Alas, although the day was glorious, the weather in recent days has been unkind. Rain yesterday and whomping great nor’westers in the last couple of weeks turned a usually rather muddy experience into a wildly feral one in many places. A large upturned tree early on set the scene as we tried various tacks and ended up scrambling round its enormous upturned roots. And so it went. There were a lot of trees broken along the ridge and plenty more along the track requiring a range of anatomical manoeuvres to traverse them. Oh and all the mud: there was mud for Africa. BTW this kiwi expression totally baffles my new African son-in-law (I may have mentioned I recently went to a wedding). What I meant was, it was muddy as, bro.
But we’re a hardy bunch and we got to the falls a bit after noon and settled in for kai time. No sandflies this time, can’t believe it. They’re always at Ryde Falls. Then, with empty packs but protruding puku, we sloshed back across the river and trip trapped home again. There was a bit less chit chat on the way back so we could listen to the occasional birdsong. This was mostly pīwakawaka but there were intermittent bursts from other small twittering varieties. We got back to the bus at 3:20 and waited for the Standards to reappear. During this time we discovered that the Ryde Falls sandflies had migrated en masse to Coopers Creek, solving that puzzle.
Many thanks to Bev for her leadership, the other important office holders, Wendy and Ali, and to Min who brought up the rear and ensured that the group size remained at a steady 25.
Today’s Stats:
Some of this data collection was outsourced to more numerate trampers.
Distance: 15 km
100 boggy bits one way
16 trees down, requiring clambering over or under or round
5 streams
Large fauna sightings:
2 separate large friendly dogs with accompanying support persons
One monospecies couple (human)
Casualty list:
Slips, trips and falls: 5
Sticks in the eye: 1
Text by Jaki
Following an early start we picked up two more people from Mandeville which took us to 46 passengers on board. Two bags of chocolates (thank you) were passed around the bus. Congratulations to Dave and Shirley on the arrival of their first grandchild. And welcome back Chris after a break.
We arrived at the base of Mt Oxford at 9.10 and set off up the track five minutes later at a cracking pace. Our morning tea stop was at 10.00 after negotiating several fallen trees and branches across the track. Also dealing with very muddy conditions under foot.
A beautiful clear sunny day gave us great 360° views as we climbed out of the bush line.
Before our lunch stop we had encountered smatterings of snow on the ground.
By the time we stopped at 12.35 for lunch in the snow sheltering from a keen breeze with a stunning view of the summit of Mt Oxford it was clear, sadly, that we were not going to make it to the summit this time.
We headed back downhill at 1.05. It was very steep and slippery in parts. We arrived safely back at the bus at 4.05 where the Alternates were waiting patiently for our return.
Thanks to our Leader Glenys and to Graham and Brent and our Tailender Dave F.
Text by Lynn B
