page 32

Friday Nights

by Peter Mansell

There you are at 5.30 pm on the median strip of State Highway 1 waiting to be picked up, wondering if they'll remember you.

Ahaah! A Runciman bus; but as you stride out to meet it, gazing at its headlights in anticipation of its slowing down to stop, your head swivells slowly round. Yes, right around, so now you're gazing at its tail lights, disappearing off down the motorway at 80k. Apart from feeling and looking a fool, you're awash in puddle spray, and are devising what to do with the trip organiser once you've strung him up on a meat hook.

As it turns out, that bus was only a Tongue and Meat one, your bus arrives some twenty minutes later.

Leaving the handles and B52's behind, you proceed into the black void of the Wairarapa, or the desolate expanses of Otaki. About sixteen hours later the bus grinds to a halt at the roadend, (about half way along the road, if heading for Otaki forks), after the mandatory last load of junk food at the dairy and greasy shop. Everyone grins and jeers as you pull away ahead of the Tongue and Meat bus. So with a banana superthickshake, a double helping of soggy chips, hold-the-dog-fritters, and a few jellybeans sitting in your stomach, you totter off the bus and set about either tracking down your group, or your leader, hearing the usual:

"Damn, my torch was on all that time."

"But I thought a windbreaker would be okay."

"You didn't think."

"Anyone got a spare right boot? 7½?"

"I thought you brought the macaroni."

"Don't worry, I brought two pairs of jeans, have one of mine."

And then you close your eyes, slowly shake your head in despair and sigh, as you see the aspiring community spirited, if-in-doubt-toss-it-in type male, who brings the group carrot supply, just in case we're snowed in for three weeks.

So, after an eternity, the hints you give of looking at your watch constantly, finally get through. You all set off for the hut. While you're admiring (or almost retching) at the legs in front, examining the stitching on the Alp Sports gaiters label, and dodging those slug-type things that the bods up ahead have blasted out of their nostrils, your torch begins to wander a little on the uphill bits and you notice that under that long woolley singlet or bushshirt of the person in front there are no undergarments. So you kindly ask Bruce to take up the rear.

page 33

After about fifteen minutes, the cackle turns into puffing and wheezing, your 'Reward' lets your armpits down something horrible, you wish Vic. club and the Romney never existed, you're thinking of plausible excuses to pike at the hut all weekend, someone's got blisters, everyone asks "how far is it now?" about four times a minute, you haven't the foggiest where you are, landmarks on the track always seem to take a long long time to pass, someone up front has crook guts and you're spitting out the lumpy bits, your torch is on the blink, you've stubbed your big toe which went septic last weekend, and the person in front has a rattley billy which is really making your blood boil, almost as much as the latest T.V. advertisement catch-phrase which keeps playing over in your mind.

The off-bushshirt stop follows shortly, accompanied just round the corner by the on-off-on-off parka stops. You note that even the fit guys stop for this often and carefully put their parka well down in their pack each time. If the person in front stops for more than five seconds, and the others behind you are bumping into the back of you, it's high time to stoop and swing your pack off. There's always someone who wants to study a map - decide who, after you've dug it out. At this stage the other groups loom up, as they approach they seem to cough more or hold their breaths to suppress the panting noises - they usually assess the situation presented as a full rest-stop. After a few more seconds, those still standing realise they don't really fit in too well, especially if they've still got their pack on, and have to answer enquiries such as:

page 34

"How much party gear did you say you had?"

"Yes, a brew would be nice, to have ready made at the hut" and if you're standing while your leader's sitting then you'll likely be nominated for brew duties in the morning.

From then on, all sidestreams, changes in vegetation, any slight hint of a fork in the track, unusual bark or leaves are deemed as official reststops. Of course, there's always something digging into someone's back which requires a thorough investigation with a committee of six.

So as your destination nears on such forgettable tracks as the Penn Ck. sidle track or the grunt up to Powell, you smell smoke.

"Oh no, who else is mad enough...?"

After kicking the doorstep to get the mud off your boots, in you plod, in your nine pound Falkners, one by one, trying not to wake the already woken. After knocking your head on a hanging tilly and spitting out someone's underpants, you put your torch down but it invariably sits so as to shine directly into the eyes of someone on the bunk. You gingerly step over to the mantle-piece or windowsill, stepping in someone's guts who's in pit on the floor and who is now rubbing his eyes looking up into your woolley singlet, and you finally get across and blindly feel around for any sort of a candle and matches. You find the tacky cold remains of a mac-cheese they couldn't hold on to.

After your hot jelly and choclate bikkie, sock wringing session, casting your vote (if at Penn Ck. hut) everybody decides it would be nice to actually locate all their own gear before they hit pit. Even though you've just arrived, your gear is spread to all four corners of the hut which now takes on the atmosphere of a Salvation Army centenary used clothing and camping equipment gala day.

When the stampede whimpers to an end, and the cacophony dies to a quiet political debate or the beginnings of a snore, you wriggle into pit, and fold your body so as to adapt to the approtioned floorboard ration. As you close your eyes you breathe in deeply for the first time ... through your nose. Your cosy little corner turned out to be the elected dump-pile for everyone's steaming wet socks, and the dung from the paddocks never did actually wipe off, you'll always have a table or bunk leg in your neck, the next guy's knees will be in your back, your bushshirt pillow never forms the comfortable shape, there's something poking into you from below that's big enough to pester but too small to warrant investigating, someone is constantly fishing last minute things out of their pack, everyone's concentrating and picturing the chewing and swallowing process of someone who's eating some choclate, the guy with the crook guts is on the other side of you, everyone has those rustley, noisy sleeping bags, everyone turns over out of phase, and someone has to crack the joke about

"And now we can all get some sleep"

but it's not so funny as everyone gives their token chortle or flying Falkner, thinking it's the last episode as...

...the Tongue and Meats turn up.