WAKE UP SOMEWHERE DIFFERENT

Back in the summer of 2005, I went for a twonighter in the Tararua Range. We’d planned our destination for the second night to be the new Elder Hut, located just above the bush line on Renata Ridge, which forks off the popular Southern Crossing route south of Mt Hector.

Setting off from Kime Hut on the second morning, we made excellent progress to Elder Hut. In fact, we arrived before the hut had even been built. All we found where a hut should have been was a platform that would one day become the hut’s deck, two sawhorses, and a tarp covering a pile of timber. It was clear we had misjudged the hut’s construction progress, but a more pressing issue was that we had to find somewhere to sleep, and fast.

Using the sawhorses and the tarp, we had no choice but to fashion a rudimentary shelter on the platform, open on one side and exposed