​Ruahine Forest Park, Manawatū – 17-19 May 2022

​The 8-bunk Leon Kinvig Hut lies in the mid-reaches of the Pohangina River, right in the centre of Ruahine whio country. Originally built by the New Zealand Forest Service in 1963-4, the hut was named after a young deer culler Leon Kinvig, who was drowned in the Pohangina River. Recently a team of Backcountry Trust team funded by Kaimahi for Nature, and led by Joe Eagles, braved autumn weather to upgrade the hut, including the installation of a new wood-burner.

​The Mōkihikui River North Branch drains a huge chunk of country south of the Wangapeka Track, in what is now the southwestern corner of our second largest national park. It’s a place of complex topography, riven by past earthquakes, and huge extents of forest, threaded by many different tributaries. One of these is the Johnson, and in its lower reaches lies the remote and rarely visited Johnson Hut.

In April 2022, a team led by Tim Marshall treated this lovely wee 4-bunker to a very timely spruce-up. The work was funded by Kaimahi for Nature, and orchestrated by the Backcountry Trust’s northern South Island manager Ollie Clifton.