Big-berth tramping huts for all comers, or something more rustic?
Big-berth tramping huts for all comers, or something more rustic?
I made my way up to the Pinnacles Hut in the Coromandel last month with fear and trepidation. Not because the track was difficult, but because the hut is the biggest in the country. An 80-bunk monster, it’s often booked out, and stories from fellow trampers featured anecdotes about Scout groups and drunken louts. As anyone knows, the only thing worse than Scout groups and drunken louts – at least when you’re trying to have a wilderness experience – is drunken Scout louts.
To put the hut’s size into perspective, the only others to come near it are some of our Great Walk huts, such as the Luxmore Hut on the Kepler track (54 bunks) or the Lake Mackenzie hut on the Routeburn (50 bunks).
Down the scale a bit from these hutting behemoths you have the newer standard-size 26 bunkers around the country, and at the lesser end of the scale, the old Forest Service huts, which tend to have six bunks and be bright orange, presumably so that hunters don’t confuse them for deer and try to shoot them.
Whether or not your Hut Size Appreciation Index (HSAI as I prefer to call it) tends towards the super-huts or the tiny jobs depends on your views on who should be taking advantage of our conservation assets. Super-huts, which attract large numbers of international visitors, drive some of my tramping buddies to limb-gnawing anger – and in the case of my friend David, to the point where he’s never tramped the Milford track
(too big, too touristy).
Me? I’m a fence sitter. There’s a place for bigger huts – the more the merrier, and they’re great for school groups and getting kids into the outdoors. I also strongly believe that conservation assets and experiences should be accessible to everyone. not just the select few who’re fit enough to carry a heavy pack. That said, there’s also something charming about tramping into the middle of nowhere and bedding down in a rustic old orange shack.
If only the range of hutting experiences could be preserved. During the 1980s, the Department of Conservation had the unfortunate habit of removing huts without discussion or notification. Without the protest (and maintenance help) of tramping clubs nationwide, more historic huts would’ve been axed. A huge chunk of the country’s population lives north of Taupo, but the hut facilities in our region are desperately small. Take the densely forested Kaimai Ranges, for example, where DoC ripped out a handful of old huts, or let them fall into ruin. Even now, the remaining Forgotten Five hunters’ huts (like Hurunui Hut, pictured above) are generally taken care of by local deerstalkers’ associations, rather than the government department that is tasked with doing so.
So where does this leave me? I enjoy taking advantage of the super-huts on occasion; they’re ideal as first-ever overnight trips for tramping newbies, and equally handy for midwinter Christmas trips, late night games of Gin Rummy and impromptu bad taste clothing competitions.
At the same time I reckon DoC should get a bollocking if any more of our older huts are allowed to fall apart. Conservation isn’t just about flora and fauna – it’s also a case of conserving the assets we have. It’s just a shame the National government seems to consider conservation as a business unit rather than a mandate for the future.
It also strikes me as slightly unfair that the New Zealand taxpayer pays twice for our hut network, while international travellers pay once. How you’d fix that conundrum is beyond me, but a conservation tax in the same style as a departure levy wouldn’t go astray.
As for the Pinnacles Hut? Arriving after the three-hour tramp (more of a womble) we’re happy to find a lineup of Europeans for after-dinner entertainment (I’m currently reigning champ at playing Spot the German) but still enough room to swing a cat or three. Some sauerkraut and a couple of swigs of Jagermeister later, we’re fast becoming friends, swapping tramping stories like comrades in Stalag Luft 13. There’s nothing quite like a super-hut to provide excellent company and good times aplenty.
Hazel Phillips is the editor of Idealog. In her last column, she left everything behind
