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ANGELS AND MESSENGERS. I think i finished off the last post with steve ,alan and i making plans for a tramping trip into the mountains in the month of october. It took us a few months to gather food together for the and we decided we would take a helecopter i through a place called Vennison tops and use that area as our starting point, so we didn't do anymore trips in as we needed to save as much money as possible,my part was to pay for the helecopter so i was exemot from buying much food,,but i still did out of kindness of heart. Man you should have seen the stuff we had,,everything but the kitchen sink. So we decided on a date when we would do the treck and both steve and alan managed to be able to take holidays. October came and before we knew it we were standing at the helecopter pad waiting for it to be fuelled up,,i had left a list of all the things i had taken with a family member incase anything went wrong,,,then people would know we were well equipped. Little did we relise that list would be pulled from its envelope by the police and the army, as well as the east coast search and rescue. It was about 5pm when we arrived at vennison tops by helecopter,,the flight in went quite smoothly,,,we were dropped off and the pilot headed back for home. Vennison tops is quite an interesting area,,it is open with just tussock grass,,,sort of like straw really, the whole place has a look like tundra country. Back in those days they had just hooked onto the idea of long distance back packing and companies were competing to come up with the best back pack, mine was a 72 litre pack which was loaded up to about 40kg. We were due to spend the friday night,,saturday and sunday,monday and then to a place called ballard hut on the tuesday. We were at what is called tira lodge where we set out from, surprisingly enough we had all fine weather the whole time we were at tira lodge,and it was on the monday that i celebrated my birthday,october 2nd. Really ,i think we made a bad mistake in staying that long at vennison tops and used some of that warm spring weather for taking the main kaweka range. We set out for ballard hut on the Tuesday morning in some of the most terrible weather you could immagine and it rained heavy all the way along the ridge to the main range,,our packs were wet and getting heavy, this was alpine altitude of near 5000 feet and was getting colder by the moment ,,we came out of the forest and started along the top of the northern end of the main range. There was no wind and when we arrived at the top the rain had stopped and there was just rushing clouds all around us.We made it to ballard hut around 5pm in the evening and began to organise the food. At these altitudes ,when you arrive at your destination you must keep moving,,espetially iff it is cold and you are wet through, first thing you do is get into dry clothing and then get a fire going to get warm becerages into you.I use dried instant fruit juice,,you get them in sachets,,it is powderised fruit juice and you just add cold water. However with the orange juice ,,iff you nadd hot water it is good as a hot drink and boy you can really feel it working on the body within minutes,,it converts to dextrose and helps the body to recover quickly The wind ha got up and the temperature was dropping rapidly and by 5:30pm it was starting to snow. NO DRY FIREWOOD....I believe it is times like these when god allows us to murder the english language. and i did.And the wors part was the person who used the hut 6 months before had forgotten to re stock the wood bin,,a big no no up there.The hut didn't have an open fire there as you have to conserve wood at that altitude and ensure to keep down the level of deforestation. We managed to get a hot fire going eventually and soon were sitting down to a hot meal.At that altitude you get tired very easily and it is difficult to work hard when climbing steep slopes.I was in my sleeping bag and snoring by 9pm. October 4th 1983 was to represent a whole new change on how i looked at god and was also was to answer all my questions about Angels and what they really look like.The weather through the night had really cut up bad and was blasting snow across the range,,,it was no place for any person, but there was no way out of it for us as there was no dry firewood so we would have been holed up in a hut that was just as cold inside as the weather outside. We were fit though and able to , and so we set off about 9am and were walking with our backs to the weather at first, but as we turned south were heading straight into it all, it actially wasn't too bad untoll we were up om the main range and relised we were trapped in a blizzard, we were unable to turn back as the weather would not allow us so we had to keep pressing on.What was a 3 hour in dry conditions turned out to be a 10 hour in stormy conditions and the clock was turning against us for daylight.,then it happened,,,we got to a place where we were in snow knee deep and it was powder,Iff you have ever been in snow like that before and that deep without snow shoes,,then you will know what i mean, along the way there are snow poles for navvigation that are about 100 yards apart and are painted orange.We were starting to lose sight of them as the wind was blowing the snow against them and covering them up,,,,,big trouble,,,and we were getting very worried.We got to a snow pole and scanned across the distance to look for the next,,,,,could not find it,,,we were done for,,Steve turned to me and asked,,,,do you still pray to your god,,,,you better pray now,,we are dead meat.and so i prayed,,,God it is up to you now to get us out of here because we cannot,,,we are stuck.It was just like somebody flashed a mirror at me, and a round hole appeared in the clouds,,but with the snow and wind still blasting at us,there was light coming through and all of a sudden there was a figure of a man with wings standing way in the distance and he was whiter than the snow,it was unusual as my thoughts were interupted with the voice in my mind saying ,,,here it is,,,and all of a sudden i could see the snow pole and started walking towards it, i turned to steve and said,,,we have to go that way,,,and as soon as we stepped out,,we could see it. It was like that for the rest of the 5 hourd that it took us to treck the tops. We arrived at a sigh post and i could see the figure up ahead and was pointing to the left indicating for us to go that way,,,we walked further and found another pole,,,then it really hit,,,the weather had turned into a whiteout, the final end of the road,,,anybody who has been in a whiteout will know that it is near impossible to move anywhere.We found a track that went down the western side of the range to a place called back ridge hut.The hut had been re stocked fresh as iff cut that day yet the last entry was 6 monthe before, The weather was bad all day thursday and on the friday,,, Bruce was due to pick us up on the thursday late afternoon and when he relised we had not turned up , rang the police immediately, the events leading up to us getting out on the sunday afternoom sparked the biggest hunt in the history of the kaweka mountains. THANK YOU JESUS THAT YOU SEND THE ANGELS TO HELP AND GUIDE US. 
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