A hard LITTLE NUMBER
t’s not every day you come I across a six-bunk hut just minutes after leaving your car.
The sign on the khaki-coloured,
Forest Service-era hut read ‘Frew
Hut’. But we were miles from
Frew Saddle in the Hokitika River and the country around us was farmland, not the backcountry.
As we trudged past the hut down the farm road, the landowner arrived and he explained how he got the hut when DOC replaced it for a newer model a few years ago.
After giving us some directions, we carried on to Diedrichs Creek and found the start of Gerhardt Spur Track. By the time we began the ascent, it was already 3pm. I looked at the map. Between us and Gerhardt Spur Biv, our destination for the night, were 55 contour lines. It was going to be a long afternoon.
Slowly, my partner and I ground our way up the ridge. The track had been cut just six months earlier and was in relatively good shape, but windfall and a bit of overgrowth slowed our progress. Just on dark, we finally broke
