Kaweka Hut Wreckers Inc.

Kaweka Hut Wreckers Inc.

Having successfully freed the Tararuas of any remaining historic huts, the Wellington Tramping and Historic Hut Demolition Club heads north, setting its sights on the Kawekas.

Come to the Kawekas, said Glynne. I'm leading a trip and I need some punters, said Glynne. There's an anti-cyclone the size of a continent centred right over New Zealand, said Glynne.

Maybe this could be it, I thought - a rare, one-in-amillion chance of going tramping without getting wet. A high the size of a continent lay over the country. The Kawekas, possibly the driest mountain range in New Zealand (with the possible exception of somewhere in Central Otago). Far from the sea, sheltered from the weather from almost all directions. No Tararua mud-baths, just dry rocky tracks. Not too much damp bush - the pioneers unfortunately may have failed to napalm the Tararuas but thankfully they succeeded in clearing most of the awful, miserable, damp, scratchy, spiky, green stuff off the Kawekas. Yeah, go for it, said the emotional, romantic, left-hand side of my brain, reminiscing about a previous dry trip I'd once been on, a trip without any rain or mud, somewhere back in the mid-eighties (or was that the seventies?).

Whup! Whup! Whup! shrieked the rational right-hand side of my brain, the neurons frantically firing into life. Pull up! Pull up! Pull up! Disaster alert! Extreme emergency! Ten second warning! Tramping Trip Glynne checks the map for historic huts Harry Smith Tramping & Mountaineering 2003 Harry Smith detected on the radar screen and rapidly approaching! Rain, mud, and misery threatening! Immediate diversionary action required!

But on this occasion the left-hand side of my brain won out, and so it was that on Saturday morning I found myself staggering up the steep spur behind Kuripapango, fat, wheezing and unfit, breathless, balding, beer-gut bulging over my belt, heading towards Kiwi Saddle Hut.

Glynne soon vanished out of sight ahead, but I gasped and wheezed my way onwards, around the ridgeline and through the encroaching pine forest, and eventually caught him up for lunch at Kiwi Saddle Hut.

After lunch we carried on around the tops via Castle Camp, heading to Studholme Saddle Hut for the night. Unfortunately that was occupied by a party of hunters, so we settled into Studholme Bivvy instead, a classic two-person dog-box bivvy from the Forest Service days in a superb location in a patch of bush at a stream junction a couple of hundred metres down off the tops. Lacking as it does a separate fire escape, wheelchair access, electronic smoke detectors and sprinkler system, and compulsory fibreglass insulation in the ceiling, not to mention being situated smack-bang in a glacier path in the event of a new ice age, this bivvy almost certainly doesn't meet DoC's compulsory hut construction and location standards, and so, like any other remaining historic huts in the hills, it is almost certainly doomed.

The next morning served to reinforce my longstanding belief that the world is made up of two sorts of people. On the one hand there are those who get up at some disgusting hour and start their day with some sort of perverse energetic work-out. These are the sort of sickos who do 50 lengths of Freyberg Pool at 6 a.m., or cycle in to work via Johnsonville and Makara, throwing in a few extra laps around the Basin Reserve for good measure. One can only hope that the police are keeping a register of these people, for the protection of society at large. On the other hand there are those fine, honest, praise-worthy, upstanding members of society who appreciate the pleasures of lying in. These people are most likely unaware that there even is a 6 o'clock in the morning - or if they are aware of its existence, they no doubt regard it as merely an abstract theoretical construct, unlikely ever to have any concrete impact upon their lives. As Sunday dawned fine and clear it because apparent that Glynne belonged to the former category while I belonged to the latter, as he set off for an early morning jog around the block, in the process casually taking in Kaweka J, the highest point in the Kawekas, several kilometres to the north of our bivvy, while I slothfully rolled out of bed some considerable time later and ambled up to the ridgeline above the bivvy to intercept him as he sped past on his return. (I noted with some relief that he had dropped his pack on the ridgeline; the thought of someone going for an early morning jog with a full tramping pack would have been just too much to bear.)

Having reunited, we headed south over the imaginatively named peaks of The Tits, before descending steeply down off the tops and into the bush towards Kaweka Hut for morning tea. Kaweka Hut is an old, historic hut dating from the 1930's, constructed from manuka pole framing with a dirt floor and triple-decker bunks. This is the sort of place I love, the sort of place that adds charm and character to the hills, and having never been here before, I examined it approvingly.

But as I looked around it because obvious that Glynne was showing some mental and emotional agitation, some deep inner anguish. Eventually he could contain himself no longer.

“Hang on”, he said slowly, a rigid, zombie-like, committee-member glint in his eye, “This is an old hut! A historic hut! WHAT IS THIS DOING IN THE HILLS?”

Glynne checks the landscape for historic huts Harry Smith “AND LOOK!” he continued, “THAT NAIL IS Tramping & Mountaineering 2003 RUSTY! AND THAT BOARD ISN'T CUT AT AN EXACT RIGHT ANGLE! AND THAT FIREPLACE IS CROOKED! THIS IS NOT RIGHT! THIS CANNOT BE TOLERATED!!”

By now his Committee member's blood was up. THIS IS NO GOOD! THIS IS A DISGRACE! THIS CANNOT BE PERMITTED! AN OLD, HISTORIC HUT CANNOT BE ALLOWED TO REMAIN STANDING IN THE HILLS! IT GOES AGAINST DOC PLANS AND REGULATIONS! IT GOES AGAINST CLUB COMMITTEE POLICIES! IT ISN'T MADE OF THE LATEST MATERIALS! IT MUST BE REMOVED! PULL IT DOWN! DEMOLISH IT! BURN IT! DESTROY IT! INCINERATE IT! MAKE A BONFIRE OF IT! REPLACE IT WITH A SHELTER!

And as I watched, Glynne began dancing around in circles, wooping and hollering like a demon possessed, chanting over and over again with all the frantic frenzied fervour of a Voodoo chickendecapitation ceremony or a Wellington Tramping and Historic Hut Demolition Club committee meeting, PULL IT DOWN! DEMOLISH IT! REPLACE IT WITH A SHELTER! PULL IT DOWN! DEMOLISH IT!

The historic Kaweka Hut Harry Smith REPLACE IT WITH A SHELTER! And in the background, as if by telepathy, I swear I could feel the faint presence of all the other Committee members, resonating in psychic sympathy across the airwaves: PULL IT DOWN! DEMOLISH IT! REPLACE IT WITH A SHELTER! PULL IT DOWN! DEMOLISH IT! REPLACE IT WITH A SHELTER!

And so it went on and on, Glynne dancing around under the evil Satanic spell, frothing at the mouth, rolling the whites of his eyes, gesticulating wildly, chanting trance-like: PULL IT DOWN! DEMOLISH IT! REPLACE IT WITH A SHELTER! PULL IT DOWN! DEMOLISH IT! REPLACE IT WITH A SHELTER! PULL IT DOWN! DEMOLISH IT! REPLACE IT WITH A SHELTER! But fortunately Kaweka Hut is owned by the Heretaunga Tramping Club, not the Wellington Tramping and Historic Hut Demolition Club, and still it stands, intact and strong and proud, and long may it continue to do so.

Eventually, as the realisation that the club did not own this hut and could not demolish it slowly sank through the hypnotic trance into Glynne's consciousness, the pyromaniacal paroxysms subsided, the dark satanic trance abated, and he returned to a normal-looking state. But though he appeared normal I could still detect traces of the glassy-eyed, robotic stare of the demonic hut demolition disease within, and I kept a careful eye on the matches, the white spirits, and the hut axe, just in case.

Leaving Kaweka Hut still standing behind us, the destructive dangers receded with distance as we Tramping & Mountaineering 2003 made out way down the track. After sidling around and crossing the Tutaekuri River, we arrived at the Lakes roadend. Fortunately there was no shelter hut here, and all the pine forest that used to exist in this area had recently been felled, so there was nothing for Glynne to take his historic hut demolition urges out on. The only question now was how to get back to Kuripapango where the club bus was parked (assuming it hadn't been demolished overnight and replaced by a shelter). There were two options: a flat, 10-kilometre road walk, or a 500-metre climb back over Mt Kuripapango. Despite the fact that it seemed suspiciously like early morning swims, cycling to work via Makara, and other early morning sicko perversions, I agreed with Glynne that the climb was preferable to the road-walk, and so we set off on our way.

We had lunch in the sun shortly before the summit, and then it was up over the top and out down the track to the waiting bus (which fortunately hadn't been replaced by a shelter). And so ended an excellent weekend tramp with dry weather. But I'm going to pass a message on to the Historic Places Trust to keep an eye on Old Saint Pauls and Turnbull House, just in case.

Postscript: It was with shock and deep sadness that just after this article was written, I learnt that Kaweka Hut had been destroyed in a fire. No members of the Committee of the Wellington Tramping and Historic Hut Demolition Club were known to be in the area at the time.