​Big Hellfire and Long Harry are huts located on Rakiura’s Northwest Circuit, a week-long plus tramping track around the coastline of this part of Stewart Island.

​Late in March 2021, BCT contractors Clint Jarvis and Paul Chinn worked with DOC ranger Andrew King and volunteers from the Winton Rotary Club to carry out work on both these huts. The work was funded by a Kaimahi for Nature grant.

​Few of our country’s tracks have as long a history as the Matemateāonga Walkway. Crossing from the rugged hill country of eastern Taranaki, the 42km track traverses the Matemateāonga Range to end on the banks of the Whanganui River. For centuries the area has been used and traversed by Māori, who developed the first track along the range. Then, during the early part of the twentieth century, attempts were made to develop a dray road between Stratford and Raetihi, and to open the area for farming. World War One interrupted, but some progress continued until the 1930s Depression saw farming and roading in the area largely abandoned. During the 1970s and 1980s, the old road route was developed into a tramping track as part of the walkways movement, when most of the existing 4 huts were also built. In 1986 much of the track became part of Whanganui National Park.