Sim Apr. 4. A very stormy night. Another large catch — 14, including 2 melonfs. Van is at least developing spinning speed. Very glad of that. Preparing for Bellenden Ker climb in the morning. Don is going to get plants; I to entomologise. Am getting badly bitten about the ankles by leeches. They seem to be biting my boots or take hold in the same place! The bites bleed for a considerable time with quite a lot. They cause swellings of the ankles. I'm trying various preventives — not to successfully. Turned over my top line to Van this p.m. The rain makes a bad outlook for tomorrow's trip. Mon. Apr. 5. Left for the mountain with two young local chaps who know the trail to the summit — Bill Kems and Sven Neilson — at 7.30 a.m. We travelled taking approximately 5 minutes rest every half hour. The first 700 feet was through fruit or bush or otherwise altered tangle of Latin thorn — tangle of lawyer cane and a creeping bamboo — vile territory! We crossed a couple of gullies — a small creek (where there is a dangerous, slippery sheet of granite covered with an inch of water, to be crossed). Then began a series of steep climbs interrupted by short lengths of crest trail leading to the top of a great ridge projecting ENE from the main range. The eastern tip is reached at about 1000 feet. The way leads along this ridge — mostly up but sometimes down, which in places becomes almost knife-edged. I finished up several plant species along that section, including a new, sweet-scented white-flowering shrub— potato of its Rubiaceae. The ridge also carried some Kauri pine. It was all forested, though in narrow places several cutouts might be made. The river bed of this ridge juts out from the main Bellenden Ker range at a point where there is a trickle of water and climbers generally stop for lunch. We did a "fool-up" too. Next came 700-800 feet of extremely steep, rocky slope, which finally wound off, and we were on the top of one of the knobs of the range — 314 feet. We arrived there at 1.10. Another half hour, down + up