Hutbagger Paul Kilgour
Paul Kilgour at North West Hut, Campbell Island. Photo: Dale Chittenden
Consummate hut-bagging tramper, Paul Kilgour of Rangihaeata, added a few of New Zealand’s southernmost structures to his list after he travelled to the Sub-Antarctic Islands of the Snares, Campbell and Auckland Islands.
He and partner Janet Huddleston went as part of a 47-passenger Heritage Expedition cruise on the Spirit of Enderby, leaving Bluff on 4 January. The nine-day return journey took them first to the Snares, where they cruised its inlets—lined with fascinating kelp and Snares crested penguins—by inflatable Zodiac. It took them 30 hours in rolling seas to reach Campbell Island, where huge concentrations of soaring albatross never fail to impress. Here, Paul took in Tucker Cove Hut, an old coast-watcher’s hut, then along with a few other passengers spent five hours negotiating cliff tops, flowering megaherb fields, giant wandering albatross roosts and marauding sea lions to get to the North West Bay Hut.
That old research hut became the 1034th hut Paul has visited in New Zealand; coincidentally, on a day he would record 1034 bars on his barometer.
“It was one of those perfect days, and it stayed like that too, unusual for down here.”
Not so for the DOC staff member who required medical assistance for a serious sea lion bite to his knee. In his 24 years of sea lion research, this was the first time the expert had ever stepped on a sleeping sea lion.
In the Auckland Islands, the ship anchored in Carnley Harbour and again up by Enderby Island, allowing the explorers ashore again. They pushed up through a thin band of scratchy, dense rata forest so they could negotiate the more open country above it. Wooden fingerposts around the coast still point and give distances in miles to old castaway depots like the Stella Hut, which has been fully restored. Inside them, a sea-lion-proof heavy steel drum contained survival provisions, including not only basics like matches, tea, flour, sugar, guns and ammunition, but also tobacco and pipes.
Another hut Paul visited in Ranui Cove at Port Ross at the northern end of Auckland Island was a coast-watcher’s hut built in 1941 and later used as a scientific base. Handwritten notices by Robert Falla can still be found inside, while outside, under the veranda, the outgoing ornithologist had scrawled: “I hereby hand over this hut to the Dominion Museum.”
Paul was also invited to visit a DOC staff hut located at Sandy Bay on Enderby Island, where the beach was packed with sea lions.
“Nothing is flash down here,” said Paul. “The huts are quite small and basic. It was great to see such a range of structures, from run-down and restored historic ones through to ones currently in use. It was an amazing trip. Everyone was abuzz with excitement at seeing all the amazing wildlife”.
Gerard Hindmarsh
