Jock Scott can clearly recall his first trip out into the hills of the Mt Ida Syndicate when he was 11.
He enjoyed the ride on a horse - ''an old half-draught, as wide as she was long'' - and remembers bouncing along.
Mr Scott was accompanied by his uncle, Bill Scott, who was heavily involved with the syndicate.
His own parents, Bob and Mavis, were turkey farmers and the young Jock followed in his uncle's footsteps when it came to an affinity for stock, rather than poultry.
''He [Bill] was the most passionate, dedicated man that lived for this country. He knew its value. Farming just flowed in his veins, particularly the hill country. He couldn't get out here quick enough.
''As you get older, it fades a little. But I still love coming here and it's so much better if you can share it with other people,'' Mr Scott, who is in his 60s, said.
For nearly 30 years, the annual drive to take the Scott sheep out to the hills has involved other people.
It was, as he said, ''just about horses, dogs and sheep''.
''The people who do it, you've got to be 'hutty' people. You've got to enjoy the camaraderie of people that have the same visions as yourself.
''Some people can come out here and be absolutely bored, be right out of kilter with the whole thing. Others just love it.
''Fortunately, I've always been like that. Just the thought of going to the hills, living in a bloody hut, was wonderful. It wasn't about being anything flash. It was just that you liked to do it,'' he said.
This year, Mr Scott was accompanied by his sister-in-law, Deb Phillips, of Alexandra, ''Mush'' Thompson, of Dunedin, who was in charge of cooking, Ken Bain, who now farms in partnership with Mr Scott, and Mr Bain's son Logan.
Kate Bell, of Hyde, lent a hand on the second day.
While the economic viability of farming operations depended on the summer grazing, there was also the historical and cultural aspect, with the syndicates making an important contribution to the rich rural fabric of the district.
As he relaxed with a beer in the early evening outside the Soldier's Hilton, Mr Scott told tales of earlier musters; of pranks and mischief, comradeship and camaraderie and the all-important weather conditions that ruled the musterers' days.
Back in the days of the Kyeburn Station mule train, which used to carry the musterers' supplies, they were only allowed to take six bottles of beer each and that had to last for six days.
''Of course you got back to the Buster [hut] and you were just hanging out to have a real bloody wind-up.
''That was the mission, back to the Buster, dogs tied, fed and off to the pub on the horses, full gallop. Course you get your fill and more so and, coming home again, it was pitch black.''
One night, he and fellow musterer Bill Sutherland decided to have a wrestle at full gallop, on their way home from the Danseys Pass Hotel.
''How bloody stupid, eh,'' Mr Scott said, chuckling, as he recalled the prank.
''Course I was the silly ... that fell off. I was so bloody lucky ... I piled up on the road. Didn't hurt myself 'cos I was totally relaxed. Hardly even knew what had happened.''
Sam Inder came along later on his horse, picked him up and double-banked him home, as his own horse, having unloaded its cargo, had already headed for home.
During one muster, an old Scottish musterer got heavily intoxicated on a bottle of whisky at Long Promise Hut and became abusive.
He had previously been kicked off a station in Southland because he put a .303 bullet through the single men's quarters.
This time, he took exception to another musterer's nasal hair and got into a heated argument.
After creating a ruckus, he was kicked out of the hut.
It was a dark, cold and frosty night and next minute there was a ''huge bloody thump'' as the aggrieved musterer threw an axe at the hut. The axe was duly retrieved and ''everything went quiet''.
The next morning, the musterers woke to see smoke up and down the gully.
The disgruntled - and cold - musterer, who was in his slippers and only lightly clad, had lit tussocks to keep himself warm.
The musterers duly turned firefighters.
Mr Scott remembered the big snowfall in 1967 when he and three other musterers arrived at Chimney Gully just in time to cut tussock for bedding before it started snowing.
The men were snowed in for three days and started to run short of food so the decision was made, on the afternoon of the third day, to head back to Tailings Creek.
With poor visibility, the route was unclear and they were forced to follow the mules, which led the way.
On numerous occasions, the senior members of the group disputed where they were heading, but as they progressed downhill visibility improved and they discovered the mules were right on target.
Weather conditions also meant Mr Scott's first trip as syndicate boss in 1996 was ''real frightening''.
He was heading to the top of the Hawkdun Range with two other musterers, Mr Sutherland and Owen Rawcliffe, all on the outside beat. But the weather closed in and it was bitterly cold.
They huddled together ''and waited and waited and waited''.
The storm blew past by about 11am but it was too late to start the muster.
The rest of the crew had piled into warm trucks and driven back to camp.
But for the outside trio, they had to walk back ''and then drive back the next day and do the same thing again''.
When it came to cooks over the years, there were some who were very good, and some who were indifferent.
''They all got a hard time from the musterers. The cook had to put up with a lot of ribbing and, if their tucker wasn't right, he'd be right in the gun. It was a job that wasn't really well sought-after.
''There's many a time two burnt chops at four o'clock in the morning and a slice of toast wasn't really an energising start to the day.''
At least in the era of Mr Scott's mustering days, the cook was able to prepare the meals inside the huts, unlike those earlier years of the bell tent.
In those days, they were outside ''struggling in the elements'', with saddles placed around the campfire to shelter it from the wind.
Stories of the packer having to scrape the snow away with a frying pan at the tent fly so he could light the fire to cook breakfast were common, the late Laurie Inder recalled in the book Beyond the Buster, which was compiled for the Mt Ida Syndicate's centennial.
The tent-dwelling musterers took off their wet clothes at night, put them under the swags, and slept on them to try to dry them out enough to put them back on in the morning.
During this year's trip, Mr Scott visited some of the old huts, on both the Soldier's and the old Mt Ida syndicates, and the memories quickly came flooding back.
At Tailings Creek, the dwangs on the walls used to be piled up with tinned food that the musterers never took home, he said.
''It was actually quite a feature to see that stuff and read the labels, like spaghetti and guavas ... and jams. A lot of it got spoilt - it rusted out.
''It's a huge image in my mind, to come in here ... and see all the different brands of tinned food.''
Mr Scott reminisced about ''many a bloody cold night'' spent at Wire Yards Hut and waking one morning to find a light dressing of snow over his sleeping bag.
At Long Promise, the old tin hut where he retrieved the long-abandoned bell tent, he reckoned he would rather have camped in a tent, given the hut was built on a swamp. The floor was wet and cold, and the hut was smoky.
''I don't ever want to come back here, but it has a lot of memories,'' he said.
