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Rescue Me!

Susan McKenzie / 16.11.2004

With an economy of movement, the Coastwide helicopter pilot and the Greymouth police officer hook heavy rescue ropes and full harnesses to the small red rescue helicopter as Geoff Hunt radios instructions to the Southern Traversers about to be winched out of a rather precarious position midway down the Bald Range near the first transition area.

But the rescue effort underway isn’t for racers, it’s for staff: the two officials from CP4 are stuck on a bluff, sandwiched between two waterfalls. They’ve been there for a few hours already, and they’re cold and wet and tired and there is no way out.

The weather remains clear (well, it’s not raining, at least) as the chopper takes flight, the long red rope and harnesses swinging hundreds of feet from the open door. Hunt’s gaze follows the helicopter’s movements as it flies up and along the range before settling on a spot about midway down.

�How the heck did they get there?� Hunt wonders aloud as he watches the helicopter zoom up and across to where the officials sit, hidden by trees alongside a long narrow waterfall about 500 metres up the ridge. It’s a virtually impossible descent.

Andrew Hodgkinson is the first to be attached to the harnesses and winched up and over the trees back to lower ground. His face is streaked with dirt, his hair has bits of twigs protruding from it and his ears are full of leaves and everything is wet: his clothes, his pack, and his boots.

“I’m sorry to be such a bother,� he tells Hunt the moment he’s free from the safety harness.

As he waits for his partner, Asher Morley, to be brought down, Hodgkinson explains how they ended up in such a precarious position.

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