When DOC was established in 1987 it was not given sufficient funding for much of its work including the maintenance of tracks and huts. After struggling for a decade, the department produced a Visitor Asset Management Programme (VAMP) which planned what proportion of the recreational infrastructure could be kept with the funding at that time. In general terms only 50% of the network could be maintained. This caused an agitated response from the tramping community and CTC called a meeting of local clubs to liaise with DOC on the question in our region. Clubs offered to do voluntary work on several tracks and CTC, in particular, offered to renovate McKenzie Hut which is in the headwaters of the Hurunui River above Lake Sumner. This hut is an ideal base for access to the main divide tops between Harper’s Pass and Hope Pass. The range in this area has open rolling tops which provide pleasant tramping. It is normally reached from the road end at Lake Taylor either by 4WD or walking four hours to the Hurunui swingbridge and thence a five to six hour tramp into the hut.
In 1999, VAMP listed the hut for nil maintenance and eventual removal. To complicate matters McKenzie Stream changed course and flooded the hut We discussed with DOC partly dismantling the hut and locating it on a safer site downstream. Later the log jam which had caused the stream’s change of course cleared itself and the stream reverted to its original bed. A subsequent engineering report decided that the hut could remain on its present site providing it was repiled and raised approximately half a metre. This work was undertaken by tramping club volunteers with materials and helicopter support supplied by DOC. This was reported in FMC Bulletin 158, November 2004. In 2005 a DOC team installed a new stove and completed relining the interior. Over the last New Year holiday, a four person team of volunteers walked in and painted the hut inside and out. DOC had previously flown in the paint and equipment. Two deerstalkers who were at the hut helped for a day. The hut is now pristine and warm and will provide shelter in this lovely valley for many years to come.
DOC now has much better recreational funding largely as a result of lobbying by the mountain community but it is pleasing that clubs such as CTC still play a part with voluntary work The work on this hut was not solely a CTC effort. The two work parties included people from PTC and Pegasus Trampers
David Henson