⛰️#45 - Love Our Huts, Hutkeepers, Haribo, How To Motivate Hikers, & Lots More

And we are back with the 45th NZ Hiking Newsletter, sent every Friday.

I let you know what’s going on in the hiking scene in New Zealand, along with other related bits and pieces I find interesting.

Well, that was a pretty spicy weather week for most of the country. It’s going to take quite a while for lots of treefall, tracks, and general debris to be cleaned up throughout the country. Some of the photos going around the internet are impressive.

Try not to be a menace this long weekend. If the track you’re planning to head out on is closed, don’t think you’re too cool to follow advice.

Thanks to those who replied to the last newsletter by email or Whatsapp (+642041702764). T’was cool to get some back and forth with a few of you.

Alright, let’s get into it with some hut love, stories, a fun powerbank, an insight into how hut etiquette has changed, motivational hiking videos and more.

❤️ Love Our Huts & Tracks Is Back

The FMC Love Our Huts campaign is back for another edition in 2025/26, and it looks like it’s off to a fast start. Last year was just one month you could participate (officially). This time they extended the time window for the whole summer.

That seems to have worked a treat as they’ve already had hundreds of people sign up to show huts all over the country some love by giving them a spruce up. You can’t get away with avoiding this that easy as there’s still hundreds of huts left, so there’s no excuse to wrangle some mates and get amongst it. Learn more and signup here.

💃 Micro Adventure Inspiration

The video is 90 seconds of a family having all the fun at a hut that only took an hour to walk to (Rod Donald Hut, Banks Peninsula). This might be just the ticket you need to get out there if you’ve been feeling lazy or struggling to motivate yourself.

Note to self: We don’t always have to go for hours to get that dopamine hit.

🥫 Do You Know What This Is?

Something I learned today (here) was that the above contraption is a can crusher. It was just over three decades or so ago when best accepted practice at huts was to crush your cans with the crusher, and then put them along with other rubbish (e.g. gas cannisters) in a hole in the ground.

It seems this practice was retired towards the end of the 80s for the most part. I feel like that’s quite recent…that or I’m pretending to be still young.

Will there be any current hiking practices we’ll think are absurd in 30 years time?

• If you enjoy looking at old photos, there are a few old photos (with captions) from the Tararua in this Facebook album from the 1960s and 70s.

🎨 Fun Backcountry Trust Fundraiser

If you’re after a couple of pieces of new artwork, you could support local artist Ginney Deavoll and The Backcountry Trust. A few months ago, Ginny approached Rob Brown at the BCT about selling her artwork with a majority of the funds going to the Trust (they don’t state how much exactly).

She’s been posting updates in the BCT Facebook group, and some of the Hut Scapes look pretty spectacular. There’s an option to buy the originals (about half left) and the prints (50 available of each hut). You can check out all of the pieces available on her website: https://ginneydeavoll.com/hutscapes

😔 Rainbow Road Update

Last week I mentioned Rainbow Road would be open for the long weekend. Scrap that…the weather over the last couple of days has blown out the fords and creek crossings on the road. Details here.

🛖 Hutkeepers Are Legends

Koropuku Hut is one of the remote huts in Arthur’s Pass National Park, and just looking at the photo above makes you understand how hard it must be to maintain. Thankfully there are awesome people like Frank and Honora Renwick who help maintain these Remote Hut. They maintained the Koropuku Hut for 30+ years thanks to an agreement with DOC. How good. They’ve now passed the reigns over to the BCT who plan to go to the hut early next year to give it some renovations so it can keep people shletered for decades to come.

I enjoyed a comment from Honora’s comment about them missing the hut on a visit once:

Chur.

🎧 Podcast Recommendation

160: Hut Etiquette in DOC Huts and Exploring the Whitecombe Valley with Renee Cadigan (Aotearoa Adventures)

• A good listen while you’re on the go between activities featuring Renee, who many will relate to.

🫎 Moosebusters Are Back For More

Last summer produced several reports of the (mythical?) Fiordland Moose. It’s a bit bonkers that in 2025 phone cameras can’t seem to produce any quality photos of sightings. But there’s a host of trail cams set up that’ll supposedly show the moose when it returns to certain areas in Fiordland this year. I’d put money on them not coming up with anything once again, but it’d be pretty cool if they could…maybe if you’re out in Fiordland this summer, you’ll get the most credible sighting yet.

This video can be pretty convincing that they’re there.

😹 Hiking Funny

(you’ll need to click through)

🔋 Haribo Isn’t Just A Trail Snack Anymore

If you’re looking for a fun present for a hiker, then you can’t go wrong with this official Haribo power bank.

And no, it’s not a gimmick. The power bank is up there with the performance of the incumbent best power banks for hiking such as Nitecore.

The video below gives a solid overview of the powerbank compared to one of the best in market power banks. The powerbank initially launched on Japan’s equivalent of Kickstarter, here on Makuake, which is interesting (the company DCHK Global licensed the Haribo branding for the power bank). I can only find it available on Amazon now (often out of stock), so you might need to get creative to get it to NZ.

🚶How To (Or Not To) Motivate Fellow Hikers

Hearing the question ‘How far to the top’ as you make your way down from the summit is a question that’ll be asked thousands of times this summer. Turns out there’s people studying what kind of cheering works.

And while the study is based on marathon runners, there are some takeaways on what to say as you pass people after a successful summit.

If you want to be helpful?

Give them good instructions on how far to the top and the usual motivational praise and encouragement

Or if you enjoy others suffering, you provide them misleading info on what terrain they’ve got left and how far it is…and then you’ll tell them to keep pushing, even though they’re already pushing as hard as they can. That’ll help break ‘em. Full article here.

🎁 A Couple Of Competitions To Enter

• NEW 2025 Cottage Gear Giveaway - enter here (closes November 3rd)

• NEW Land Sea NZ x Zempire Camping Giveaway - enter here (closes October 28th)

• NEW Real Meals Giveaway - enter here (closes October 28th)

• NEW Book Giveaway from a Kiwi author - enter here (closes October 29th)

• Bivaouc Water Safety Quiz ($500 voucher up for grabs) - enter here (closes October 31st)

• Merch Design Competition (Taranaki residents only) - details here (closes October 31st)

🧔‍♂️ What I've Been Up To...

I was going to mention some of the favourite gear I used while away, but I’m gonna shove that to next week. It’s been shocking weather since I’ve been back, but the day before getting back to Queenstown was a brilliant day to go up the Corner Peak Route (my guide) overlooking Lake Hawea. It’s a big day out, with a couple of spots that’ll keep you honest if you’re not a massive fan of technical terrain.

It’s an epic hike, and way better than both Isthmus and Roy’s Peak for me…but I’d save it for only those who are experienced hikers as there are some spots where you could take the wrong route and find yourself in trouble. Even going up to the first half would be fun.

Corner Peak is where Glen Thurston hiked to for 53 consecutive days in the summer of 2022/2023 (write up here).

Have a great week, hike it up.

As always, reply to this email (or message me on Whatsapp +642041702764) with anything and everything…I’m happy to chat.

Chur,

Jub

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