New Zealand Outdoor Recreation Consortium – 2016

Lonely Lake Hut

Gaylene Wilkinson and friends have recently completed a maintenance/enhancement project on the lovely little Lonely Lake hut. Lonely Lake was one of the huts in the area built by Golden Bay Alpine and Tramping Club in the 1970’s, others included Trident Hut and the first Boulder Lake Hut, so it is fantastic to see this tradition continue.

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The first huts were part of the campaign for the formation of North-West Nelson Forest Park, which later became Kahurangi National Park, in which Golden Bay Alpine and Tramping club members including Berna and Frank Soper were instrumental. Read Gaylenes report here: Lonely Lake Hut report

Thomas River Hut

Geoff Spearpoint has been on a roll in South Westland for a long time, but his recent efforts in Tunnel Creek, Roaring Billy and now Thomas River have shown increasing perseverance. Thanks also to his very handy partners in hut restoration, Liz Stephenson and Hugh van Noorden. Report here

Daly’s Clearing Hut

An update from Geoff Glover of the Manakau Tramping Club..

“We had ten members on the day. We spent all day saturday and the morning on sunday working on the hut, the grounds around the hut, the toilet, and the tracks leading to the hut and away from the hut. We managed to do all the rain gutters, the inside of the hut including the moldy ceiling is like brand new now.

All club members involved were very enthusiastic and got stuck in to the task. There are several LARGE trees over the track which need DOC attention please. Our next working bee will involve some of the less direct tracks. Could you please advise by return our boundaries for track maintenance.

The whole grounds around the hut were manicured.

Something must have got out about our working bee clean up as that night at DALYS HUT there were 24 heads. “

Glenrock Horse Access

Well-known backcountry horse-rider Peter Hurst has been leading a project to improve backcountry horse-riding facilities between the Rakaia and Rangitata, largely on Hakatere Conservation Park, or land that is likely to be added to this Park in due course.

“Just to update you on the Glenrock Grant. We are progressing extremely well with the work.

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I have included some photos for your reference. The first two are the horse gates installed in the top of Redcliffe Stream. We have been very fortunate with the free use of helicopters to fly in fencing materials to various huts in the area. The first Glenrock Stream photo shows one of the five gates installed by the contractor and the view is towards Turtons Saddle. The second Glenrock Stream photo looks toward the Rakaia River in the foreground, with Mt Algidus on the left and Mt Oakden on the right.

Now we have great facilities in the area for horse riders and horse access from the Rakaia River through to the Rangitata River and all on Public Conservation Land. The installation of Horse Gates and the installation of horse paddocks at many of the huts is a direct result of the grant.

We thank you for your assistance with this project. We will submit a full report in due course.”

Mid-Tasman Hut

One of the flagship projects of the first round of Outdoor Recreation Consortium funding is the support of the New Zealand Alpine Club’s Mid Tasman Hut project. A relocatable hut to replace former huts that have existed on the Tasman glacier, including at De la Beche Corner and Malte Brun.

FMC keeps in touch regularly with the project manager Johnny MacFarlane. Some hurdles to the hut project have been overcome and the hut is now ready to build this winter with a view to getting flown onto site in the 2016/2017 summer. An article that recently appeared in the Climber magazine is re-produced here: NZAC Climber Magazine Update #1 (1)

Delta Ridge Hut

Repainting Delta Ridge Hut
Michael Pavitt

With the help of the Outdoor Recreation Consortium the Auckland section of The New Zealand Alpine club has successfully repainted the Delta Ridge Hut. The hut was in dire need of recoating as the harsh alpine conditions have left the paint peeling off the battered weatherboards. The project was completed over two weekends of great weather with a small group of volunteers carrying all the paint and ladders up the hill to the hut.

We had to pay special attention to leave no trace of our works on the mountain, catching all debris and carrying it all down with us. We also had a good cleanout of the roof cavity and carried down some loads of old electric hobs, broken tools and windows, even a few bricks. We had a team of 12 people help out over the 2 weekends with 300+ hours of volunteer labour. Thanks again to the Outdoor Recreation Consortium for the funding.

Esk River Catchment Huts and Bivs

Craig Benbow of the Malvern Branch of the NZDA has sent in a quick update on his teams works on the huts they have adopted in the Esk catchment, east of Arthurs Pass

“Just back from five days of the best weather ever in April to do work on huts! Just a quick list of what has been completed:

Candlesticks Biv:
Volunteers (Murray Robertson, William Benbow(16yrs)) Repairs to framing, bunks and fitting of new building paper, minus a bit we miscalculated on, sealed and screwed all the cladding. New chimney extension and cap fitted with steel brace attached. Four tie downs installed and the hut firmly secured to the ground. Rust proofing and primer applied before three coats of top coat applied. A new flashing fitted above the door and on the lock side of the door to seal. No paint has been applied to the door or chimney yet. The wood had too much moisture in it already and the chimney needs weathering a bit. A new woodshed was constructed and a tidy up of the surrounds completed.
No ungulates harmed but birdlife was significant and appeared to be quite healthy. Image attached. Rusty sheet of iron against the wood shed was placed there for storage.
Status: Completed

Bull Creek hut:
Volunteers (Jules Snoyink, Les Hurford)
Floor repaired, walls cleaned prepped and painted with two coats.
Temperature not conducive to a final coat. Fourth tie down waratah sunk and wire tensioned. Couple of small adjustments to the new bench we built in January and inspection of the user created modifications to the chimney.
Status: Completed

Lochinvar Hut:
Volunteers (Jules Snoyink, Les Hurford)
Window frames and sills scrapped and painted with three coats of Bullseye red paint. Open cracks in the flooring repaired by gluing and screwing plywood under the floor. Toilet door and seat repainted with the same colour. New woodshed built and filled. General tidy up about, birds nests and rubbish removed.
Status: Complete. Paint job needed in a couple of years and new clearlight skylight needed soon as becoming quite hazy.

Ant Stream Biv:
Volunteers (Hunter(15 yrs) and Craig Benbow) Toilet moved from delivery site and installed. Secured with waratahs and large boulders removed from the hole. Completely dismantled the entire structure as only parts of the roof framing were still sound.
Deconstructed the chimney and panel beat the user modifications and tree induced bends from the panels 90% of the rebuild completed. Essentially rebuilt from the ground up with almost all new treated timber and H5 piles. Extremely tough digging conditions and encroachment of vegetation extended the job. The original construction of this biv was non standard and caused quite a few issues with trying to match the cladding back to the structure and locating enough materials to construct it. Building paper has been applied to most of the roof and all of the walls but again we fell short by about 2 metres of material. We had to leave the structure unfinished so have covered it with a tarpaulin and hope to return in a couple of weeks and complete the task. Although quite frustrated to have to leave this in the unfinished state it offers another opportunity to get the additional materials identified as needed on site. Worst Sandflies I have ever encountered in Canterbury! Wildlife very scarce, Bush Wren and Bellbird visit each morning, TomTit about and a couple of Paradise Shelduck but no Kea or game. 8 mummified remains of possums under the biv but never saw any sign of possums or heard any either.
Status: Incomplete and unavailable for use at present.

Esk Biv:
Toilet delivered to site
Status: In process

Avoca Hut

Canterbury University Tramping Clubs Avoca Hut used to be most famous for the bathtub carried to the site over the course of several years. Now it may well become famous for one of the most complete transformations of a hut by volunteers. 23 Volunteers, 900 hours of labour, one very awesome place to go visit. Congratulations Kerry Clapham and team. Read the full report with good detail here: Avoca Hut report

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Kaimai Ridgeway Trust

What started as an idea has now morphed into a registered charitable trust, a fusion of the efforts of a dozen hunting and tramping clubs. 3000+ Volunteer hours spent, 140+ of tracks maintained, 6 huts improved or maintained. The Kaimai Backcountry Plan is impressive as is what has been achieved

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Parks Peak Track

The Heretaunga Tramping Club have long played an active role in providing and maintaining huts and tracks in the eastern Ruahine and Kaweka ranges. Glenda Hooper reports on a recent effort to continue maintaining the Parks Peak track, above the Makaroro river.

A carload of 4 people drove down to the Yeomans Mill site on a reasonably fine morning. We left my place at 6.30 and had crossed the Makaroro and put on our boots for the climb up by 8 am. The Shining Cuckoo was in fine song as we left the river and walked along the forestry road, with raincoats on because of the light drizzle which was at times replaced with rain and at one stage a small amount of fine hail. Later on in the day we heard the squawks of long tailed cuckoo.

Three hours on we had reached the start of the route that we maintain for DOC. our previous working bee we had run out of time to do the top section so it was our job to rectify this. Most of our efforts was in a section just below the first creek where wind-fall had obliterated the track. We established and marked a bypass around this and removed markers that now pointed the wrong way. We had lunch in a small clearing, the weather had cleared by now although it was not terribly warm.

After lunch we returned up hill adding more markers where required and got back to the track junction around 1 PM. One of our party was still keen and cleared quite a bit of the recent wind-fall on the DOC maintained Parks Peak Track. We got back to our car about 3.30 pleased that we had been able to complete our task.

Party: Robin & Michael Pohlenz, Janice Love & Glenda Hooper.