Date: 9th April - 10th April 2016
Location: Tawhitokino Regional Park
Trip Leader: Tom Goodman
Trampers: Thomas Goodman, Sach Knight, Erika Bouchard, Tim Gray, Nina Buzby, Ben Mansfield, Louis Christie, Quinn Menton, Tanya Peart, Cassidy Bummer, Viktor Herskind, Ella McKenzie, Ray
Li.
In the weeks preceding this trip, the challenges seemed insurmountable. There was the lack of drivers, an absence of any beach-friendly sporting equipment, and – just to cap it all off – up until Friday morning it looked like it would rain all weekend. Finding myself parked at the road-end, with 12 other weather-be-damned types, under a blue sky, seemed to be a rather unlikely outcome! But so it was.
After a quick scramble round the rocks (which was both longer and more challenging than I remembered, and involved several unpleasant encounters with oysters), the group found themselves at the most perfect little beach in the whole world. And what did they do when they got there? They played board games.
Or rather, some of them settled into board games. Some of them leapt in the water and declared it not too bad. Meanwhile, the truly dedicated set to work on untangling the volleyball net. This was not easy. Neither, it transpired, was pumping up the volleyball using a standard hand-held bicycle pump. But eventually, the stage was set. And, after a couple of hours of hurling ourselves round the sand, most of us were capable of getting the ball over the net at least some of the time.
Night came, bringing with it an opportunity to explore our inner-tribespeople, and a fire was duly lit. Marshmallows were toasted. Various drinking games were proposed, but eventually the consensus was that there was insufficient alcohol to make any of them truly memorable, so the group settled down for an evening of trying to make a litre of vodka stretch as far as possible. In true AUTC tradition, a skinny dip was enthusiastically seized upon, complete with the added bonus of watching the glow of bioluminescent plankton- ‘I swear I was just looking at the plankton’.
Sunday morning came, and Sunday morning went. The engineers built a dam in the neighbouring creek, and then built a bigger dam just for kicks. The non-engineers played a game of soccer, and kept an eye on the engineers. Eventually, the rain came, and with it the end to the festivities. A trip to the dairy for ice-cream, pies, and chips, and Tawhitokino was farwelled – until next year…
Author: Tom Goodman
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