Restoring Roaring Billy Hut

Roaring Billy Hut after restoration.

From the first days of the Outdoor Recreation Consortium, Backcountry Trust board member Geoff Spearpoint had taken on the maintenance of the remote NZFS huts in South Westland. These three S70 6-bunk huts were amongst the last built by the NZFS in the 1970s and over the last few years Geoff has led many groups in to this area to do the work on Tunnel Creek, Roaring Billy and Thomas River Huts.

Roaring Billy Hut before restoration

Peter boxing up the new hearth.

Roaring Billy Hut had received very little maintenance since it had been built but was still in fundamentally sound condition. One issue that did need fixing, and is a problem on some huts of this era, is the chimney has been supported by a bed of river rocks.  In many cases this has been perfectly fine, but others like Roaring Billy the stones have slumped over time and the chimney has started to peel off the side of the hut. This was the situation when Geoff's team started work on Roaring Billy and one of the first jobs was to jack the chimney back up and retro pour a new reinforced concrete hearth. Over two trips, Geoff's regular crew for this project completed numerous other catch up maintenance jobs. The old lead roof ridging, which was leaking and long past its best, was replaced. Windows were repaired and properly flashed. A new woodshed built and the hut was cleaned and painted on the inside. The interior linings had been partly damaged by the leaking roof and in places the lining was repaired or replaced.