⛰️#66 - Hut Loved, Design A Hut, Tongariro Fire Starter Revealed, & Lots More.

And we are back with the 66th weekly NZ Hiking Newsletter. It’s a late one this week.

Last week I finally got around to the Love Our Huts campaign, which saw me get into Otago’s Cameron Hut (starts near the famous Blue Pools) over the weekend.

I’ll write more about that at the end of the newsletter, but for now, I'll let you know what’s going on in the hiking scene in New Zealand, along with other related bits and pieces I find interesting.

Alright, let’s get into it. Chur.

🗒️ Track News Etc.

• 323,000 hut/campsite nights booked this summer. Despite NZ’s mediocre summer weather the nights stayed in huts and campsites across the country were similar to last year (I believe this is only from bookable spots).

  The year on year distribution across regions varied thanks to various events (mostly weather) but we ended up with a total of 323,000 nights stayed. Full press release here.

• Tongariro fire starters revealed. The cause of the Tongariro fires has finally been released. Sparks from car tires was the cause of BOTH fires (not deliberate). It took a while for the investigation to be completed, but it’s good we finally have an answer. More details here.
  
  News from Tongariro National Park does see to come in batches. In some positive news :

  • There have been some native plants that survived the fires, with the volcanic plateau speargrass (spaniards 😠) and a bunch of totara seemingly untouched. More details here.

  • The Government has opened the doors for Chateau Tongariro to potentially reopen if the right private investors come forward. Have you got a few million spare? Get your proposal ready by April 21st. More details here.

• New Ashley Gorge Loop is official. There’s a new loop west of Rangiora that’s now a complete 4-5 hour tramping route (shoutout to those who put the work in).

  There already was a ‘loop track’, but this new track takes you on a ridgeline with views over the Canterbury forests. We all love a ridgeline! More details here.

• Design your dream hut? Manaaki Ruahine and the Backcountry Trust are working together, and it looks like they're going to go ahead with a new design and build of Hapi Daze Hut in Manawatu/Whanganui (a newly cut route to the hut was made).

  Have you ever thought of designing a hut? They're currently seeking ideas of what people want for the future hut. If you really wanted, check the comments in this thread, add a couple of your own ideas, and with a bit of AI smarts, you could probably design a really good looking, functional hut. They could well use your design...you never know!

😹 Hiking Funny

I appreciate that Jetboil can laugh at themselves.

🗒️ More Track News Etc.

• $150,000,000 for nature. We need more people like Neal and Annette Plowman in the world. After running a successful business as a towel supplier (boring businesses go good), they managed to save a few bucks, of which $150,000,000 is put aside for Next Foundation to help restore kiwi wildlife. Details here.

  I’d love to know if donating it to DOC was a consideration at all. Your thoughts? If you had a spare $150,000,000…who would you donate it too.

• Hundreds Of Public Access Easements Unlocked. There’s no fancy reveal with a towel drapped over a statue, but DOC and the Outdoor Access Commission have mapped 175 public easements that are legal for public use to access conservation areas.

  Previously many of these were dubious because adjacent landowners could make an effort to make the easement look like private access only. But with the new mapping data, and all the legal bits tidied up, you can look at the map layers and find out for sure. Details here.

• Hectic Tatoo. I enjoyed seeing this tattoo pop up on my page. Geordie Dafoe really did seem to enjoy an OSM bar on the Te Araroa. I do love a bliss ball, but I don’t think I’ll have one tattooed on my this week.

• If you’ve got some chill time coming up, you can watch the backlog of chats from BackPackingLight.com’s Trail Days 2026. It features 13 chats with experts on a variety of topics, of which a couple should be of interest to you. E.g.

  • Where in the world is your gear made?

  • Wet Weather Gear and a PFAS-Free Future

  Well know kiwi athlete Anna Frost is also a guest chatting about her Trans-Bhutan Trail FKT

🧔‍♂️ What I've Been Up To...

Weeeeee. That was a fun weekend. After a bit of a mishap on Friday afternoon, my partner (Bekah) and I finally began the trek into Cameron Hut (this one in Otago - not the Canterbury one) late Friday.

The track was a lot slower going than expected which resulted in us spending the last hour or so hiking along the somewhat technical track with head torches on. It was a bit of a relief to arrive at the empty hut, meaning we didn’t need to tippy toe around sleeping guests.

The next morning we woke up, and got to cleaning for FMC’s Love Our Huts campaign. We didn’t have a lot of time due to needing to meet friends back at the trailhead at 12, but we gave it a go. If we had another hour, that would have been ideal, but we did what we could…and while it was already in decent condition, we left it looking a lot better than we started.

We were there on March 13th, and there were only 5 entries in the hut intentions book for the month thus far. So it’s not a super popular hut!

From what we can tell, we suspect it’s a hut many people often turn around on after discovering how slow going the trail is.

In short, it was fun to go in and give a hut a deeper clean than I would on a given night. There’s still some huts that haven’t been signed up for…take a look at them, a mid autumn mission might on for you.

After making it back to the trailhead, it was a quick shuffle around and then we were up to Brewster Hut for the night. Great as always. We didn’t head to the glacier (too much cloud action above the hut) but that’s alright, still worth it.

And no keas ate our tent, or any of the 8 others set up that evening.

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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