Hut Renovating in the Eyre Mountains

Whilst I was happily paddling at the PRANZ meetup in Wanaka, a bunch of Permolat Southland volunteers had been doing renovations on a hut in the Eyre Mountains. These mountains are sandwiched between the highway heading south from Queenstown, south of Lake Wakatipu, and Mavora Lakes. They don't get a huge amount of visitors, mostly hunters and anglers, and there's a bevy of old forestry huts in there.

Mansion Hut got a makeover early January, but due to cloud and too many trees near the hut affecting helicopter access, they hadn't had enough time to do any painting. So I put my hand up to walk in and finish off the job.

Wally had been in a couple of days before me and had painted the hut. Which left just the toilet to do. So I spent a day painting a loo! And filling up the newly constructed woodshed with all the wood cut down to allow the helicopter to land.

After a couple of postponements due to low cloud affecting access I joined the team to renovate Irthing Hut, which is further up the Irthing Stream than Mansion Hut, though access via the stream is hard going as it's gorged, and there are easier alternatives. For us, we flew in by helicopter, bringing all the building material with us.

Not many people visit the hut, maybe 20 people a year, but it's in a nice location quite close to a small stream and catches a bit of sun when it comes out to play.

First step was to find a spot to pitch out tents. The ground was very wet and boggy, but I managed to find a spot under a large rock some distance from the hut up in the trees away from the river. Since we were cooking and eating down at the hut it wasn't such an issue being camped so far away. I just needed to find my way back to my tent before it got dark!!

Our team got going on the list of chores. A new skirt around the bottom to stop the floorboards getting damp and rotting.

Digging a toilet hole and erecting the kit toilet we had brought with us.

Painting the outside of the hut.

Painting the loo.

A new chimney cowl, though it looked like the chimney was already drawing well as it wasn't smoky inside the hut.

A new fireplace guard and surrounds tidied up.

A new woodshed.

It was a really good crew to work with. We had some laughs and enjoyed a little bit of downtime at the end of the day over dinner and a beer. 

The final day was misty with low cloud and we were a bit concerned that the chopper wouldn't be able to get in to retrieve us, so we made sure we were packed up and ready to go should a clearance come. Which gave us a little time for an explore and a few pictures of the finished effort.

The chopper turned up around 4, returning us back to Eyre Creek where we had left our cars. But Hutty had other plans, having hired the chopper to check out a few of the more remote huts in the Eyre Mountains and he invited us to join him. Lois and I jumped at the chance. Hutty is one of the top hutbaggers on the website, he's also a retired roofer so a great asset. I felt a little bit of a cheat ticking off some huts by landing next to them in a chopper and going in to write in the book, but if it's good enough for Hutty....

And then a few weeks later the entire Godzone crew would have stopped in on their way through the Eyre Mountains leg of the race. You're welcome!

Track cutting in Fiordland

 Last year at Easter, I spent a few days volunteering with Permolat Southland at Deep Cove. We did some track cutting and installed some trap lines for the Deep Cove Outdoor Education Trust. Since then I've not been available for further volunteering, but recently I did find the time, this time to recut a track in Fiordland.

Lake Hauroko, in southern Fiordland, is known for the wicked winds that funnel down the lake. There's a tramping track down one side of it, that goes to a lakeside hut at Teal Bay, before crossing a 3 wire bridge at the lake outlet and heading west to another lake, Lake Poteriteri. This is a fairly remote part of Fiordland, and there are no further tracks once you reach the hut at Poteriteri, though there are certainly lots of off track routes to explore. As a result, these tracks don't get a lot of traffic, and with high rainfall the crown ferns soon take over, obliterating the route.

Permolat Southland were given the track between Teal Bay and Poteriteri to maintain, because DOC don't have the time, money, or inclination to clear it themselves. And since this is a route I plan to take with my packraft I was very glad to be able to help clear it.

A week before we went in Les walked through over a couple of days and marked the route with pink tape. There are lots of orange triangles marking the track but the crown fern is so abundant and high that the markers are mostly obscured.

Day one for our team dawned overcast, but there was no wind on the lake and a very pretty rainbow. 

We met at the jetty at Lake Hauroko, loaded Joyce's boat, Namu, with gear and motored down to Teal Bay. There Alastair, John and I jumped out with our gear, and the boat continued down to the lake outlet to drop off two other members of the team, Les and Gavin, plus our full fuel cans so we didn't need to walk them in. Les and Gavin left the fuel at the bridge, and tramped in for a few hours, to camp beside one of the streams and begin cutting further west towards the hut. Our job was to cut from the Teal Bay end to their campsite.

Each day we walked in, cutting and clearing the track until it was time to head back to Teal Bay Hut. We left our tools where we finished for the day, meaning the only thing we needed to walk in was more fuel. Each day the tramp in and out got longer, but luckily for us Ross turned up on Day 2 with his boat which meant we could dispense with the 40 minutes each way tramp to the outlet, and avoid crossing the three wire bridge over the Wairaurahiri as well. There was still the Rata Burn 3 wire to cross each day....

It was frigging hard work. Whilst the others wielded power tools, I cut and slashed and picked up all the cut ferns so you could actually see a track. My back was really feeling it after two days, but I spent some time stretching back at the hut and the next few days had no further issues.

By lunchtime on Day 4 we had cleared all the way to the next big creek after the Rata Burn. As we were eating lunch I noticed a newly marked track (I'd walked down to the stream the day before to get water and the track and pink ribbon markers hadn't been there then) so I followed the track to a different  crossing spot on the stream and could see the tents of Gavin and Les. We had done it!

After lunch and tidying up the final piece of track to the stream crossing, we carried our tools back to the boat. That took a good 3 hours as we were pretty tired by then. But it was a great feeling of achievement to know we had done what we had set out to do, particularly as there had been less volunteers than Alastair had hoped.

The final day we just lazed around waiting for our 4 o'clock boat pickup. Les and Gavin turned up around lunchtime, looking as exhausted as we felt. They too had finished cutting through to the flats before the hut, although with less people in their crew had not cleared the vegetation away as much as we had.

At last the boat arrived and we all clambered onboard, including a solo kayaker who had paddled down to Teal Bay the day before, knowing full well that the wind was picking up after a week of settled weather, making a paddle back impossible. I was awed by her nonchalant attitude, just expecting that someone would give her a ride back. Of course we did. No way do I have that sort of self assurance!

There was bad weather brewing, and I was exhausted. So I drove back to Wanaka to rest up for a few days and plan my next adventure.

That's next..