In late January 2016, Gaylene Wilkinson, Geoff Spearpoint, and Alex Tuffnell spent three days preparing and painting the hut exterior. They also cleared existing drainage around the hut, and lifted and relaid the rock cobbles at the entrance to the hut.
Ivory Lake Hut has long been a destination on every dedicated hut baggers list. It was built in 1970 from a standard NZFS S70 kitset hut that was ordered by Trevor Chinn for the team that planned to study the small Ivory Glacier. This team first went in to survey the area in April 1968. In the preceding years the NZFS had already built the first hut in the Waitaha Valley – Top Waitaha Hut which opened up the huge hunting basins in the upper valley. In those days there were no tracks in the lower valley and the standard access was up over the main divide via the well established network in the Whitcombe and Prices Basin.
In March 2020 Permolat stalwart Hugh van Noorden got together a keen group to head in the West Mathias valley to renovate the West Mathias Biv. The group had also identified that, like many of these small bivs, it needed a small woodshed to stop people storing wet wood under or in the hut, a toilet and a general tidy up of the hut itself. The group worked for five days to build the woodshed, install the new toilet and paint the hut. This hut had also suffered from the vegetation around the hut crowding in and this was trimmed back to let more light into the site.
South Huxley Biv was built in 1962 and is one of only a couple of crawl in S86 bivs built with a small fire built on the side of the hut (many of the Canterbury bivs were built with the fire on the front next to the offset door). It was the very first hut restored under the Outdoor Recreation Consortium in 2014 when it received a small grant for the work in the first funding round. Geoff Spearpoint, John Abbott and Rob Brown flew into the hut in late November 2014 with basic tools after having been told the hut was in good condition and only needed a paint. It would probably be the last time a group would fly in blind like this to do a project as it soon became apparent that the rear window had been leaking and most of the rear wall was rotten. Luckily they had brought in some extra hand tools and timber enabling basic repairs to be carried out to ensure the hut would remain water tight and serviceable.
In 1995, the Waimea Tramping Club adopted Balloon Hut, and has done a fabulous job of raising funds and maintaining the hut since. In a proposal for Round 2, which continued their involvement in the care of Balloon Hut, they applied for funding to go towards the installation of a wood burner, and the build of a woodshed.
Elcho Hut was built by the New Zealand Alpine Club in 1938 and this 12 bunk hut has stood the test of time nestled into its strategic location next to the Elcho Stream. It is one of the classic old club huts in the Southern Alps and has had regular maintenance over the years by the keen volunteers from the North Otago Section of the NZ Alpine Club. By 2016 the original old wooden windows had become rotten and the decision was made to replace them with some new, aluminium-framed windows of the same size.
For the past ten years the Hurunui College Nina Valley Restoration Group have had a trap line up the Nina River as part of bringing back the birds to this valley. The valley has a remnant population of Great Spotted Kiwi, Kaka, Kea and parakeets as well as a small population of Whio (Blue Duck). In the early years the trap line only went as far as the new 10 bunk Nina Hut, but as the project gained momentum the group pushed their ambition further up the valley. The group had established a permanent storage in the small two bunk Upper Nina Biv which they used for storing camping, spare traps and cooking gear for the group on extended trips. The site had no toilet for larger groups camping here and the storage was taking up alot of space in small biv. The Backcountry Trust identified this facility as a priority for investment and put together a team to go in and do the work in December 2018.
McCoy Hut in the headwaters of the Clyde River has long been a critical facility for trans-alpine trampers heading into or out of the Gardens of Eden and Allah, as well as being a good base for recreational tahr hunting. It was one of the first S70 6-bunk huts built in the Canterbury region and sits in a strategic location on the junction of Francis and McCoy Stream; two waterways that can easily flood when the weather turns bad.
Mungo Hut is a standard NZFS S81 hut built in 1962 to replace an old Internal Affairs deer cullers hut built on the same site. It sits on a tussock bench at the headwaters of the Hokitika surrounded by cedar trees and is one of the huts on the West Coast that takes a bit of effort to get to.
Toka Biv sits on the edge of a high shelf on the side of the Ngamoko Range in Ruahine Forest Park. This old flat tin roof S86 bivvy was built by the New Zealand Forest Service during an intensive period of installing these small huts in the area between 1958 and 1960. Further up the range, Tarn Biv and Kylie Biv remain in reasonable original condition but over the years a number of others were removed as they slipped into decline.
An hour from the summit of Mt Kapakapanui, Kapakapanui Hut is located on a now well-marked circuit in the Tararua ranges, around 2-3 hours from the Ngatiawa roadend. It’s a great stopover when heading on to Renata Hut or even as an easy place to head for a night in the hills.
The NZDA Kapiti Branch had felt for sometime this hut was in need of a tidy up but was initially thinking of just patching up the rough bits and painting the interior. After a site visit to confirm the general condition of the hut for himself, Mike Briggs soon realised that the project was about to develop into a full restoration and reclad of the hut. After a second visit with builder Glen Botha, they both agreed to a more extensive Scope of Works to protect the long term future of the hut. A schedule of materials was drawn up and quotes obtained, and used to complete the application made to the Backcountry Trust for the September 2018 round of funding. After visiting Renata Hut on a slight detour while walking the Tararuas in 2013, local hunters and trampers Grant Timlin and Barry Durrant were disappointed to find the old building in a sad state of repair. Grant had hoped with the change of ownership from its original builders, the Wellington Catholic Tramping Club, to the Department of Conservation, a bit of maintenance might have been done in the subsequent years. Numerous groups expressed an interest, but nothing happened and the hut continued to be vandalised and decline. Newton Creek Hut in the Arahura Catchment inland from Hokitika was built in April 1962 by the New Zealand Forest Service. This standard 4-bunk S81 hut had been in relatively good condition until people started to notice that rats had broken into the wall and ceiling cavities in 2012.
A joint project was funded by the Backcountry Trust and Permolat, and in February 2017, builder Eric Saggers flew in with John Charles from Arthur's Pass, Rob Brown and Peter Mortlock and two tonnes of materials and equipment. Over the next two days the hut was stripped right back to the frame and the team set about rebuilding the corners of the hut, replacing rafters that had been almost completely eaten through by rats, and laying a new marine ply floor over the old one after areas of rot and rat damage were removed. Mistake Flat Hut was originally built as a standard NZFS S70 hut situated in the Rakaia catchment on Glenfallach Station, for use if the cullers were unable to cross the river. Once the culling had ceased in the early 1980’s, and the hut was no longer needed, it was loaded onto a trailer and moved to the current site in the Havelock Valley, to replace the wind-damaged hut of the same name. The hut is situated by the confluence of the Forbes and Havelock rivers in the upper Rangitata catchment, and can be reached by four wheel drive vehicle. In 2019 a hardy group of volunteers from the Nelson Mountain Biking Trails Trust has steadily worked away repairing the popular Hacket Track close to Richmond. This old benched stock track traverses a legal road alongside the Hacket River and as well as being a good mountain biking track offers access into some nice tramping country in Mount Richmond Forest Park. Healey Creek Hut is in a strategic location at the start of the Galena Ridge on one of the routes into Ivory Lake. Permolat had identified that the hut had slipped off some of its piles and was leaking. In mid April 2018 Tom Hayes of Christchurch got a group together to take on the work. Jane Morris, John Milne, Geoff Spearpoint, Andrew Buglass and Rhys Bowden, joined him on the first work party and over the next few days lifted the roof, replaced the building paper and barge caps, prepped the window frames for paint, while others got on with recutting the access tracks. Back in 2018 the DOC Wanaka office informed us that they were contemplating demolishing the old Top Forks Hut at the head of the Wilkin Valley in Mt Aspiring National Park.
Built in 1960 by deer culler and local Makarora pilot Alan Duncan, the hut pre dated the establishment of the park in 1964 and was built as a joint venture with Mt Albert Station as a base for venison recovery, recreation and mustering the head of the valley. It was a link with the heritage of the park we thought was worth saving. In late 2017 Bull Paddock Creek Biv was officially closed after an engineering inspection concluded that the foundations were weak and could fail, potentially resulting in the biv toppling down the hill. Working with the DOC engineer, a volunteer group came up with a plan for a new set of foundations for the biv that would meet an appropriate construction standard. The Backcountry Trust approved funding for the project in Round 9. The 49 kilometre Wangapeka Track has five huts along its length, two bivs and one historic hut (Cecil Kings Hut). The mid way point is the 10 bunk Helicopter Flat Hut which started life in 1963 as a standard S70 NZFS hut. Over time it has been enlarged and modified to cope with the increasing use of Kahurangi National Park for recreation.
In Round 9 the Backcountry Trust funded a modest maintenance project for a retired building team led by Bill Barnett. As part of this it was also decided to reduce the bunks from 10 to 8 to better reflect the use patterns on the Wangapeka and make the hut a little more open and less crammed. Back in early Winter 2019 Alastair Campbell got a group together from Permolat Southland to carry out the catch up maintenance on Caroline Hut on the shores of Lake Hauroko in Fiordland National Park.
The hut was built in the 1960s by a group from the local NZDA Branch using native timber from the local Tuatapere Mill. Over time the hut has developed a few issues including a number of floor joists that had been badly affected by borer and had subsequently fractured. The roof was also leaking. The Backcountry Trust has been an ongoing supporter of the improvement and maintenance of the Mountain Biking trail network in Craigieburn Forest Park.
To date we have funded some $69,000 worth of work on a variety of trails in the network. This work has ranged from smaller projects such as the replacement of a small bridge on the Luge Track, through to bigger works, like contractors to repair and realign parts of the Hogs Back and Dracophyllum tracks. Campbell Biv is one of the least visited and most remote of the West Coast huts located, on a scrubby spur high above the Arahura River. Built in 1958, it was designated for removal in the 2003/4 Recreation Opportunities Review but no one seemed to have got around to doing it. After 30 years of zero maintenance it was starting to deteriorate rapidly when Paul Reid of Permolat decided to take on it's restoration.
In late summer 2019 the Mount Cook Residents Association completed the routine maintenance on Aoraki/Mt Cook National Park's oldest hut – Sefton Biv. This small corrugated iron biv was built in 1917 by Peter Graham who was then chief guide at the Hermitage.
One of the more rarely visited huts in the Toaroha Valley on the West Coast, Crystal Biv had been on the Permolat schedule of huts to maintain for some time. In early Feb 2019, four people from Permolat flew in with new materials that had been pre-prepared by the workshop at DOC Hokitika. The group as accompanied by New Zealand Geographic roving reporter Kennedy Warne, who turned out to be pretty handy with a hammer and saw himself, who was putting together a story on the hut renovation work. Built around 1965 on Wyuna Station near the Shotover River, Stoney Creek Hut was originally built for goat control in the area. When the station went through Tenure Review a few years back, this unusual Dexion framed hut came across to the public network but had received no maintenance in that time until Mike Lagan and others visited in 2014 and resolved to put together a project to restore it.
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Projects
June 2023
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