No need to head for the hills for a bed

Tuesday, 21 November 2017

Fiona Burleigh and Anthony Behrens sit in front of their tribute Forest Service hut in their Palmerston North backyard.

A Palmerston North backyard is an unlikely place for a tribute Forest Service hut, but follow the orange Department of Conservation markers down Dorset Cres and that's exactly what you will find.

Anthony Behrens and his partner Fiona Burleigh have opened the Whiowhio Hut for Te Araroa hikers and Tour Aotearoa 'bike-packers' to stay in.

Anthony Behrens and Fiona Burleigh inside their tribute Forest Service hut.

Te Araroa – New Zealand's Trail – is a continuous 3000-kilometre walking track from Cape Reinga to Bluff and the Whiowhio Hut sits almost halfway along it.

As keen trampers, who have walked parts of the trail, and members of the Ruahine Whio Protectors, Behrens and Burleigh recognised trail users needed somewhere to stay.

The signage for the Whiowhio Hut has been made to look like Department of Conservation signs.

* Te Araroa trail walkers skip Manawatu

* Upgrades planned, charges considered as Te Araroa trail attracts record numbers**

'We have had 35 travellers staying in our house over the past few years,' said Behrens, 'and building the hut was a way to give visitors independence and indoctrinate them in the religion of whio protection.'

Behrens and Burleigh have kept the hut authentic, with bunks, deer antlers and a DOC visitors-intentions book.

They have painted it in DOC rescue orange, with a corrugated iron roof complete with the street number painted on top, just like they did before GPS, said Burleigh, 'so that the deer culling helicopters could drop supplies off to the right hut'.

Burleigh did most of the work, using skills she learnt while training as a cabinet maker. She is looking forward to welcoming the hut's first guests.

'We really enjoy meeting trail hikers and we think it is one of the things we should embrace as New Zealanders, to welcome anybody who wants to walk our country.

'That's an incredible mark of respect from them, wanting to spend five months or so here. We enjoy their enthusiasm and their brightness and we want to give back to people.'

Money raised from the project will go to the Ruahine Whio Protectors and Behrens said if visitors are lucky, 'they might get the chance to do some conservation work'.

'If they are unlucky, they will get lots of lectures on the sorry state of our birdlife and the occasionally exciting exploits of the Ruahine Whio Protectors.'

Behrens also said the hut presented them with a way of giving overseas visitors a bit of 'real-pretend Kiwi hut culture'.

'Most of the travellers that stay are from overseas and have had little to do with the culture of New Zealand's back country. Whiowhio Hut is a relaxed way to pass on some of that culture before hikers head into the Tararua Ranges.'

Whiowhio Hut was named after the trip the pair made up the South Island stretch of Te Araroa in 2015 and it was officially opened last weekend.