SAYER HUT

Tararua Forest Park, Wairarapa – 6-10 September 2022

sayer hut team September 2022

\Some guess Field, others think Cone, but no, the oldest hut in Tararua Forest Park is actually Sayer Hut.

​Built in the early 1900s by the Sayer family, who used to run cattle on Tōtara Flats, this rustic hut has stood in place for more than century, albeit with many modifications over the decades. It was there when the Tararua Tramping Club formed; it was there when members of a missing tramping party wandered past, oblivious to the hut, in the infamous Sutch Search of 1933.
 
In a nice turn of history, members of the Sayer family recently did a marvellous job of re-cladding the hut, helped by a grant from the Backcountry Trust.

sayer hut interior

​Since the century before, the Sayer family had farmed the Tōtara Flats but tragically Richard (‘Dicky’) Nicholas Sayer was killed by a bull in 1902. His son, Richard B. Sayer, built the hut in 1907 or 1909 (accounts vary) at a location west of its present site, on the banks of the Waiohine River. In about 1945-47, the hut was dismantled and rebuilt on the present site by Leo Sayer, who feared a change of the river’s course was going to threaten the site (which didn’t eventuate).
 
The hut is maintained by members of the Wairarapa Branch of the New Zealand Deerstalkers’ Association, which includes several Sayer descendants. In the BCT restoration team was Dickie’s grandson Paul Sayer (aged 75), great-grandson Barry Sayer (63), great-great grandson Kane Sayer (49), and great-great-great grandson Rex Pender (32). Quite the family affair.

arriving at tōtara flats

They reported: ‘While the hut got a new chimney and new roof in recent times, the external cladding was long overdue for renewal, so Dicky Sayer’s descendants set about organising the materials and logistics.’
 
‘Early spring in the Tararua Ranges is always a risky choice, but the availability of Kane (a builder) and Rex (a roofing contractor) drove the decision to choose this season. Jason Diedrichs and his team at Amalgamated Helicopters provided transport, working around unsettled weather that had left snow on the ridges. Fortunately, most days worked out fine enough to allow a full 10 hours of work.’

east face before re-cladding

east face after new cladding installed

​‘The first job was the laborious task of stripping the old iron sheet cladding, which soon revealed the historic hand-split tōtara cladding beneath. We took care to ensure that only a certain amount of the working face was exposed to the elements, as a lot of fiddly building and steel work was required. Nothing on the original structure was square or plumb!’

the exposed old tōtara cladding

‘We strengthened the tōtara slabs by fixing them to the frame with heavy-duty purlin screws. Afterwards, we fixed treated structural ply over the slabs, which in turn was covered with building paper. The final cladding was corrugated Colorsteel, with numerous bespoke flashings also required.’

​‘We also made such running repairs as fixing a leak behind the walls in the sink water supply, reconstructing a collapsed waste pipe, and re-shaping and re-cutting the drainage channels around the perimeter. The eastern window needed to be removed and re-installed to accommodate the new cladding, and a rotting sill replaced. We also replaced the Clearlite on the eastern face.’

new ply

​‘We found some interesting relics and signs amongst the old cladding, but left these hidden for future generations to rediscover.’

​‘The entrance porch also received some attention. We replaced an old plywood shelf with a with a tōtara ledge and a hand-hewn tōtara packer inserted behind the flashing to give the entrance some symmetry.’

the team at the hut entrance

​‘Kane also made a substantial macrocarpa table top, inlaid with a piece of tōtara routed with ‘Sayer Hut 1907’. This was fitted adjacent to Les (Hoppy) Hooper’s memorial plaque, an ideal place for that last beer as the sun goes down behind Cone Ridge.’

new tabletop

​‘A few weeks later, over Labour Weekend October 2022, Paul and other Wairarapa deerstalkers constructed a new woodshed, water-tank stand, bench seat and tōtara step (in the porch), and also replaced the Clearlite above the entrance.’

before and after north face

​Grateful thanks from the BCT to Paul, Barry, Kane and Rex for such a fabulous job.