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-TEE STARS LOOK DOWN
+===== The Stars Look Down. =====
 - Dot Butler.
-People come back from mountaineering in the Rees Valley in New Zealand and talk about the little Esquilant Bivvy on the slopes Of Mt. Earnslaw. It wasntt there when I climbed in that region some
-years ago; it was only an idea in Bert Esquilant's mind; the wild winds blew through Wright Col, as barren of human habitation as any mountain of the moon, and the timid deer :arid thz storm-wild keas saw nothing there but ice and rock and snow.
-The soft moth-wings of memory brush my brow and I am back with friend Birtle contemplating one of the greatest climbs we did in the Southern Alps. West Peak of Earnslaw is not so high as the Minarets or Malte Brun (both 10,000 ft.), or Mount Cook (12,000 ft.), all of which we had climbed together the previous Christmas, West Peak is lower by 19000 ft0 but it had this incalculable charm about it, that it had seldom been climbed before. A dark cloud of mystery brooded over it - secrets, stony, silent, inhabited its gloomy fastnesses - a realm where even conjecture might not enter.
-Brilliant summer had passed; the air was sharpened with the faint sting of coming auumn - a time of turbulent wind and sudden rain - of falling leaves and ripening snow berries.
-Below the Birley Glacier just about sundown we established a high bivvy among the gleaming snow grass. Close by was a dark,roCky waterfall chasm which seemed possessed by strange shrill voices - cold with an icy breath that made a red fire race in our veins and keyed up all the millions of fine pulses in our bodies to the'highest pitch of vibrant, singing life.
-We heated up a ready-cooked stew on a high-altitude primus and ate, snuggled up in our sleeping bags, while we watched and listened to the high cold wind which rushed ceaselessly out of the translucent blue darkness, bowing down the long silvery tussock grass till one thought of a dryad's hair streaming down over the lovely curving slope in endless billowing ripples,
-Tea over, we stowed away our things for the night, then lay on our backs, partly sheltered by the sturdy tussock clumps, enjoying the gusty tumult of wind as it poured down the slope bearing a smell of icecaps and illimitable'snow-fields. We looked up into the incredible heights of blue, deeper than any ocean, where whisps of cloud swirled and streamed and poured themselves in fine cascades from one blue interstellar space to another. Stars lay'scattered -
- myriad golden points of light - and the moon was full. Birtle
-slept, breathing gently into the tussock grass. In the half state
-between waking and sleeping I thought I was above that vast infinity
- of space looking down on it, and then it seemed as though "down, don
-forever I was falling through the solid fraMeterk of created things, and must forever sink into that vast abyss"....and I, too, lept.
-There is a quiver which ruhs through all nature a little while before dawn, when sleep vanishes. We awoke to see the whole hillside a-ripple under the fluid wind, and we listened to its thousand voices while we cooked our breakfast on a flaring grass fire.
-.
-And now we were away - up over the windy tussocks in the soft grey light before the dawn - more alive than all the living, light as the wind itself, powerful as a stlorm, tireless as a turbulent glacier stream: Oh, the joy of living; - to feel the ice axe clin3 on rock and ice: - to see the timeless miracle of dawn breaking on the mountain tops:
-Up the Birley Glacier, which was considerably broken, threading our way through crevasses to the top from which we could look down
-into the Rees Valley - a great space inhabited by moving air and billows of swirling mist. We were now in Wright Col, at about 7,000 ft., where the snow slopes make a graceful curve and swell to the summit of East Peak, That was the first mountain I ever climbed in New Zealand, and though I have been up it several tirms since, it
-will always remain a sight that catches the heart; the thrill and
-wonder of that first snow climb will never be forgotten.
-"If ever I die," said Bert, "I'd like a hut built here as a
-memorial."
-"Uh-huh," said I absently, my mind groping unconvincingly into some impossibly remote future, about 80 years hence, When Birtle might conceivably be dead.
- Passing through Wright Col, suddenly we got OUT first glimpse
-of the great fluted wedge of rock which is West Peak. There it rose Vast gloom at its base and vaster gloom surrounding its summit.. Hew
-wonderful the lonliness was up there:
- g27.=.osseu the desolate soree terraces on =bile west side of
-Earnslaw, then a long stretch of misty morning slipped by while we
-proceeded up a steeps iced crack of rotten rock which led to the higi col between the East and West peaks.
-A short pitch up the hard, unsympathetic ice slopes of the steel S.E. face, moving one at a time, and then we went together along the
-summit ridge, wind-weathered into two terraces, in a world all grey
-and white - the rocks grey and grey and more grey, till they were rather black than grey; and the snow grey, and less grey, and not
-grey at all, but a gentle tone of white, robbed of its hardness.
-This is the place where time and eternity, earth and heaven meet.
-We absorbed it in a vivid silent interval. On a mountain top there is no need for speech - between the climbers there is a silent
-comprehensive friendship beyond the need of words. They are
-conscious together of the subduing spell of silence, the sudden joy of new discoveries in mountain lovliness the wonder and the beauty of it all - and that is enough.
-And now all form and definition were quietly blotted out; a soft mist crept about us as we climbed down south-west of the summit to the col between West Peak and the first of the Seven Sisters. There they sat, seven timeless ladies in a timeless row, and looming out of a sea of mist was the grim black bulk of Pluto standing guard over them, his face stony and terrible, his fierce forbidding brows
-a 1
-ti . a
-a
-l6.
-drawn together in a frown that boded ill for any paltry 7ortal who might think to show them disrespoo "Somewhat. inurmunsqa Birtle. "It will be pleaFOng to goL back to our C=:' ir.d so vas I thinking of lower levols - of tf: friendly friendly varll.ay vihto there
-were lots of little things - iiLto ferns and bE;721zini azica flowers - tiny gauzy specks -Chat flew and flitted above the banks of the singing stream - sunstarts on gleaming leaves and grass, and a gaysome little valley b:7eezp-merrying over the swaying clove:2,
-On our nountain height thc, lifted sone71aP.t and gazing down, we saw a great unfamiliarvalley, dct-ip daloE Jld desolate,
-ania fine drf.ving
-whore s').:-e we?1
-Con:'ludin that Vaismust he 1-luto Col and not WIcht Col as we had expected - the two places lay a whole vAle7s width apart we made all haste through it, relieved at being abloito turn our backs on - "rie rather frightening giant, Pluto. Shirting round the high rock terraces and snowfields at the valleyts head we reached the next col, which nust be Wright Col, unless the mountain as bew3che6 as indee-i ',oemed. We searched for our footmarLy4 fla(-1c) In
-morning and found traces so faint and dim that they seemed to
-vanish as we looked at them, and we could not be sure that they were not rather tracks made by a wandering dner stepping lightly on hard surface of ',ae
-We zig zagged up a snowsiope, following the. faint trail till it vanished on the hard ice,.. end there was nothing visible through the mist tO tell us whether this was the col we sought or not. But it was so, and gladly we strode dom. the Bj.rley Glacier,and' 8o, to our bivvy itc by the waterfall; thence down t:ae sprin c:nd acroos H lorg shoulders of the hifl to our little Lut pecLod like an ,:)agle!s eyrie on the tree-lines where the golden autumn forest and the silver snow grass met.
-YI.Sr_t had stolen all detala:fw:r, the i.11s by th. /11.e we 7o.ac3
-finhe. our evening meal.  sJ.c,pt below
-peaks a.bovE) had silently luf.:qhen :Lto -cppe7! Ve
-strot&Isd ourselves comforly 1-.(c ov.Lr 7e7)3,2 - a fv7,7
-desultory raps Of convesation viizions 0.c-J fl.ow
-and rock and ice slopes 7  of a d gant and seven who
-sat together like god and godesses kinziy region ,.T.)07) -
-clothed in a blanket of.mist 1I aipO..?asleepDeep.
-then all consciousness melted '3,-vay, raml a L;oar; cilence enpped
-o   oa.aces.o.ouoa.
-Two years have passed by, and nom the endless sleep lies heavy on Birtle, wiped out of existence by an avalanche in the Swiss Alps. The brave eyes are forever closed and the laughing lips are s',Allo But the little Esquilant Bivvy nestes as a memorial in the pass where we had stood bewildered in the ndF:to It opens its alrrEi and gathers climbers to itself as the darkness falls.....and in the silence the stars look down.
-.
-WHO'D BE A BAULKER (Part 2)
-Another Trifle in the Same Vein'
-Mulga
-Our raft's a remarkable sort,of boat
-Made from inner tubes to help it float  With a top of sticks - quite dead I vow - And a bent old branch to form the prow.
-It's not much good for the open sea,
-And for trips where you want to be home for tea
-You'd better leave early - it's rather Slow. But where's my proof? My friend, I know
-From bitter experience - bruised by rocks On the rapids, you see, of the upper Cox.
-Do you remember when I bought that 60 foot length of rope
+People come back from mountaineering in the Rees Valley in New Zealand and talk about the little Esquilant Bivvy on the slopes of Mt. Earnslaw. It wasn't there when I climbed in that region some years ago; it was only an idea in Bert Esquilant's mind; the wild winds blew through Wright Col, as barren of human habitation as any mountain of the moon, and the timid deer and the storm-wild keas saw nothing there but ice and rock and snow.
-and a book on mountaineering, spurred to daring by a Certain Party's charm. And do you remember that I was going to tie her up with it
-as a last resort? Wells I'm pleased to relate that its only use so far has been to safeguard our small brother whilst reparing the
+The soft moth-wings of memory brush my brow and I am back with friend Birtle contemplating one of the greatest climbs we did in the Southern Alps. West Peak of Earnslaw is not so high as the Minarets or Malte Brun (both 10,000 ft.), or Mount Cook (12,000 ft.), all of which we had climbed together the previous Christmas. West Peak is lower by 1,000 ft. but it had this incalculable charm about it, that it had seldom been climbed before. A dark cloud of mystery brooded over it - secrets, stony, silent, inhabited its gloomy fastnesses - a realm where even conjecture might not enter.
-roof of his parent's house, and that the book stands on OUT shelf
-as a living example of what lengths a man will go to to preserve a
+Brilliant summer had passed; the air was sharpened with the faint sting of coming autumn - a time of turbulent wind and sudden rain - of falling leaves and ripening snow berries.
-fair maid's favour at the risk of his precious neck. That threat to life and limb is now a thing of the past, with our rock climbing exploits limited to the Galong Creek-Carlon's Head type, but to one who likes water only when it's in a hot bath, or when he's exceeding thirsty, the latest craze is just as bad.
-In all fairness I must admit that the idea first came to me
+Below the Birley Glacier just about sundown we established a high bivvy among the gleaming snow grass. Close by was a dark,rocky waterfall chasm which seemed possessed by strange shrill voices - cold with an icy breath that made a red fire race in our veins and keyed up all the millions of fine pulses in our bodies to the highest pitch of vibrant, singing life.
-years ago when I first saw the Blockup couldn't walk through
-it, didn't have the energy to walk around it (i.e. up and over), and
+We heated up a ready-cooked stew on a high-altitude primus and ate, snuggled up in our sleeping bags, while we watched and listened to the high cold wind which rushed ceaselessly out of the translucent blue darkness, bowing down the long silvery tussock grass till one thought of a dryad's hair streaming down over the lovely curving slope in endless billowing ripples.
-certainly didn't consider swimming through. I wondered what was on the other side, and now and again I would toy with the idea of
-building a raft, in situ, to explore the unknown. Inner tubes were
+Tea over, we stowed away our things for the night, then lay on our backs, partly sheltered by the sturdy tussock clumps, enjoying the gusty tumult of wind as it poured down the slope bearing a smell of icecaps and illimitable snow-fields. We looked up into the incredible heights of blue, deeper than any ocean, where whisps of cloud swirled and streamed and poured themselves in fine cascades from one blue interstellar space to another. Stars lay scattered - myriad golden points of light - and the moon was full. Birtle slept, breathing gently into the tussock grass. In the half state between waking and sleeping I thought I was above that vast infinity of space looking down on it, and then it seemed as though "down, down forever I was falling through the solid framework of created things, and must forever sink into that vast abyss".... and I, too, slept.
-to supply the buoyancy.
-Year after year the idea flourished and waned, as I sat in my
+There is a quiver which runs through all nature a little while before dawn, when sleep vanishes. We awoke to see the whole hillside a-ripple under the fluid wind, and we listened to its thousand voices while we cooked our breakfast on a flaring grass fire.
-armchair and planned. Then, of course, I confided by longing to a C.P.
-"Why, what a wonderful idea," she burbled, all enthusiasm. "There's R rubber dinbhy in that Disposals store...."
+And now we were away - up over the windy tussocks in the soft grey light before the dawn - more alive than all the living, light as the wind itself, powerful as a storm, tireless as a turbulent glacier stream! Oh, the joy of living! - to feel the ice axe clink on rock and ice! - to see the timeless miracle of dawn breaking on the mountain tops!
-"Not wait a minute dear, not now; what about the bedroom aurtains. Can't afford both you know." (Phew, that was close.
-Water? Brrrr. Do you remember the Lovaduck Argosy?)
+Up the Birley Glacier, which was considerably broken, threading our way through crevasses to the top from which we could look down into the Rees Valley - a great space inhabited by moving air and billows of swirling mist. We were now in Wright Col, at about 7,000 ft., where the snow slopes make a graceful curve and swell to the summit of East Peak. That was the first mountain I ever climbed in New Zealand, and though I have been up it several tirms since, it will always remain a sight that catches the heart; the thrill and wonder of that first snow climb will never be forgotten.
-Time passed, and Putt, talking with me quite academically about
-such matter, spoke loudly enough for the C.P. to hear, and the campaign was on.
+"If ever I die," said Bert, "I'd like a hut built here as a memorial."
-.
-So, next thing I knew it was New Year weekend and there we were at the launching place at the Gibralta Creek junction, chosen because of its easy access tia the six-foot track, and offering a raftable stretch of water - or so we thought. But vemory plays
+"Uh-huh," said I absently, my mind groping unconvincingly into some impossibly remote future, about 80 years hence, when Birtle might conceivably be dead.
-queer tricks, especially when you've always walked along the banks of a river rather than in its and mostly when the water was high.
-The young brother had first try, floating lazily at something less than a slow walk tantil close to the first rapids - short sharp ones hurrying into a flurry of foam. Then suddenly there came frantic distress signals, a quick rescue, and he scrambled ashore to safety.
+Passing through Wright Col, suddenly we got our first glimpse of the great fluted wedge of rock which is West Peak. There it rose; vast gloom at its base and vaster gloom surrounding its summit. How wonderful the lonliness was up there!
-"Ah this is the life" I mused (me being built of sterner stuff), is I gradually moved faster into the rapid, but there was one snag, in the form of an Unavoidable overhanging branch, just a foot above the water. Oh well, grab it and hope: And next thing there I was bereft of raft and plucked from my branch to folloWcit bump...bumppo..bumppp... The C.P. was doubled up with,
-mirth at this.
+We crossed the desolate scree terraces on the west side of Earnslaw, then a long stretch of misty morning slipped by while we proceeded up a steep, iced crack of rotten rock which led to the high col between the East and West peaks.
+A short pitch up the hard, unsympathetic ice slopes of the steel S.E. face, moving one at a time, and then we went together along the summit ridge, wind-weathered into two terraces, in a world all grey and white - the rocks grey and grey and more grey, till they were rather black than grey; and the snow grey, and less grey, and not grey at all, but a gentle tone of white, robbed of its hardness. This is the place where time and eternity, earth and heaven meet. We absorbed it in a vivid silent interval. On a mountain top there is no need for speech - between the climbers there is a silent comprehensive friendship beyond the need of words. They are conscious together of the subduing spell of silence, the sudden joy of new discoveries in mountain lovliness the wonder and the beauty of it all - and that is enough.
+And now all form and definition were quietly blotted out; a soft mist crept about us as we climbed down south-west of the summit to the col between West Peak and the first of the Seven Sisters. There they sat, seven timeless ladies in a timeless row, and looming out of a sea of mist was the grim black bulk of Pluto standing guard over them, his face stony and terrible, his fierce forbidding brows drawn together in a frown that boded ill for any paltry mortal who might think to show them disrespect. "Somewhat grisly," murmered Birtle. "It will be pleasing to get back to our camp." And so was I thinking of lower levels - of the friendly friendly valley where there were lots of __little__ things - little ferns and berries and flowers - tiny gauzy specks that flew and flitted above the banks of the singing stream - sunstarts on gleaming leaves and grass, and a gaysome little valley breeze merrying over the swaying clover.
+On our nountain height the mist lifted somewhat, and, gazing down, we saw a great unfamiliar valley, deep, dark and desolate, and wet from a fine driving rain.
+"Oh Birtle, where are we?"
+Concluding that this must be Pluto Col and not Wright Col as we had expected - the two places lay a whole valley's width apart - we made all haste through it, relieved at being able to turn our backs on the rather frightening giant, Pluto. Shirting round the high rock terraces and snowfields at the valley's head we reached the next col, which must be Wright Col, unless the mountain as bewiched as indeed it seemed. We searched for our footmarks made in the morning and found traces so faint and dim that they seemed to vanish as we looked at them, and we could not be sure that they were not rather tracks made by a wandering deer stepping lightly on the hard surface of the snow.
+We zig-zagged up a snowslope, following the faint trail till it vanished on the hard ice, and there was nothing visible through the mist to tell us whether this was the col we sought or not. But it was so, and gladly we strode down the Birley Glacier, and so to our bivvy site by the waterfall; thence down the sprining tussocks and across the long shoulders of the hills to our little hut perched like an eagle's eyrie on the tree-line, where the golden autumn forest and the silver snow grass met.
+NIght had stolen all detail from the hills by the time we had finished our evening meal. The valley slept below, and the snowy peaks above had silently withdrawn into the upper darkness. We stretched ourselves comfortably in our hessian bunks - a few desultory scraps of conversation - hazy fleeting visions of snow and rock and ice slopes - of a dark giant and seven princesses who sat together like god and godesses in teh kingly region above - clothed in a blanket of mist - all asleep... asleep... sleep.... then all consciousness melted away, and a great silence wrapped us.
+----
+Two years have passed by, and now the endless sleep lies heavy on Birtle, wiped out of existence by an avalanche in the Swiss Alps. The brave eyes are forever closed and the laughing lips are still. But the little Esquilant Bivvy nestles as a memorial in the pass where we had stood bewildered in the mist. It opens its arms and gathers climbers to itself as the darkness falls.... and in the silence the stars look down.
+----
+===== Who'd Be A Baulker (Part 2). =====
+=== Another Trifle in the Same Vein ===
+- Mulga
+Our raft's a remarkable sort of boat\\
+Made from inner tubes to help it float\\
+With a top of sticks - quite dead I vow -\\
+And a bent old branch to form the prow.
+It's not much good for the open sea,\\
+And for trips where you want to be home for tea\\
+You'd better leave early - it's rather slow.\\
+But where's my proof? My friend, I know\\
+From bitter experience - bruised by rocks\\
+On the rapids, you see, of the upper Cox.
+Do you remember when I bought that 60 foot length of rope and a book on mountaineering, spurred to daring by a Certain Party's charm. And do you remember that I was going to tie her up with it as a last resort? Well, I'm pleased to relate that its only use so far has been to safeguard our small brother whilst reparing the roof of his parent's house, and that the book stands on our shelf as a living example of what lengths a man will go to to preserve a fair maid's favour at the risk of his precious neck. That threat to life and limb is now a thing of the past, with our rock climbing exploits limited to the Galong Creek - Carlon's Head type, but to one who likes water only when it's in a hot bath, or when he's exceeding thirsty, the latest craze is just as bad.
+In all fairness I must admit that the idea first came to __me__ years ago when I first saw the Blockup - couldn't walk through it, didn't have the energy to walk around it (i.e. up and over), and certainly didn't consider swimming through. I wondered what was on the other side, and now and again I would toy with the idea of building a raft, in situ, to explore the unknown. Inner tubes were to supply the buoyancy.
+Year after year the idea flourished and waned, as I sat in my armchair and planned. Then, of course, I confided by longing to a C.P.
+"Why, what a wonderful idea," she burbled, all enthusiasm. "There's a rubber dinghy in that Disposals store...."
+"Not wait a minute dear, not now; what about the bedroom curtains. Can't afford both you know." (Phew, that was close. Water? Brrrr. Do you remember the Lovaduck Argosy?)
+Time passed, and Putt, talking with me quite academically about such matter, spoke loudly enough for the C.P. to hear, and the campaign was on.
+So, next thing I knew it was New Year weekend and there we were at the launching place at the Gibralta Creek junction, chosen because of its easy access via the six-foot track, and offering a raftable stretch of water - or so we thought. But memory plays queer tricks, especially when you've always walked along the banks of a river rather than in it, and mostly when the water was high.
+The young brother had first try, floating lazily at something less than a slow walk until close to the first rapids - short sharp ones hurrying into a flurry of foam. Then suddenly there came frantic distress signals, a quick rescue, and he scrambled ashore to safety.
+"Ah this is the life" I mused (me being built of sterner stuff), as I gradually moved faster into the rapid, but there was one snag, in the form of an unavoidable overhanging branch, just a foot above the water. Oh well, grab it and hope! And next thing there I was bereft of raft and plucked from my branch to follow cit bump... bumpp... bumppp... The C.P. was doubled up with mirth at this.
 "All right Beautiful, see if you can do any better." She did, inasmuch as she stayed aboard, but who ever heard of going down rapids backwards? "Well," indignantly, "What do you expect. There's no rudder and you wouldn't make any paddles. Anyhow, this is fun."
-So on we went for an hour or so, -" a thrill a minute - and then with muggins aboard, down a drop - woompZ Off fell the
-groundsheet-wrapped pack and careered downstream whlIbt the raft
+So on we went for an hour or so - a thrill a minute - and then with muggins aboard, down a drop - woomp! Off fell the groundsheet-wrapped pack and careered downstream whilst the raft neatly lassoed a rock and stayed firmly still. Have you ever tried to chase a runaway pack down a narrow boulder-strewn fast-flowing stretch of river? No?
-neatly lassoed a rock and stayed firmly still. Have you ever tried
-to chase a runaway pack down a narrow boulder-strewn fast-flowing stretch of rivers No?
 Things were looking black (including my most recent bruises) I decided, as we dried the sodden articles in the sun. Time for a strategic retreat, honourable or otherwise.
-"The tubes are going down, dear; trouble with the valves.
-I Can't very well fix them here; got the right gear at home though. How about going up Galong, round to Kennel Flat....."
+"The tubes are going down, dear; trouble with the valves. I can't very well fix them here; got the right gear at home though. How about going up Galong, round to Kennel Flat....."
 We did, and if you think I'm going to be dragged into continuing the equeous expedition on the next long week-end you're wrong. "What's that, dear - better fix those valves - not much time left?....."
-Oh Oh, here, quick, pass MB that coil of ropel.
+Oh Oh, here, quick, pass me that coil of rope!
+----
 "A Committee is a gathering of important people, who singly can do nothing, but together can decide that nothing can be done." (Fred Allen)
+----
 .
 COMING EVENTS: Although there's a walk on the Programme for the