A man for the wilderness

Wednesday, 2 September 2020

Paul Kilgour outside Round Hill Hut, upper Otuwhero Stream, Kairuru. He’s visited more than 1200 huts over the course of his tramping life.

COLUMN: One name you will surely spot in Kahurangi hut books is that of Paul Kilgour.

The lifelong tramping passion of this 69-year-old Rangihaeata man has seen him traverse all over our wilderness hinterland, not to mention much of our wildest country from Stewart Island to Northland as well.

One defining feature has been his meticulous record keeping.

Piles of school notebooks record details of every trip taken, right down to acute observations of plant and bird species, history, weather and exact routes taken. His voluminous photo albums record virtually every one of the 1209 huts he has visited.

Not bad, considering there are only supposed to be 900-odd DOC huts nationwide.

His stories are numerous and entertaining. Like fumbling along in complete darkness and pouring rain up the Roaring Lion, trying to find somewhere to shelter and camp under.

Paul Kilgour, right, on his first tramp, White River Hut, Waimakariri Valley

“I had my hands out in front of me just feeling where I was going. Suddenly I felt this plastic sheet. It was a bivvy I didn’t know even existed. Sheer luck too, it teemed down all night.”

He recalls another time at Sabine Hut; “One guy groggily got up in the night to take a pee. First he banged his head on the rafter, then he fell off the stool getting down from his top bunk, knocked all the firewood over before pushing the door too hard and careering out down to the lake. All we heard was this big splash, the whole hut erupted in laughter. Time to restoke the fire and put the billy on!”

Paul admits to an obsession with huts in particular. A staunch member of the Golden Bay Tramping and Alpine Club since he arrived in Golden Bay in 1988, his favourite local huts, apart from the Kahurangi Lighthouse Keeper’s House, are the well known backcountry ones of Lonely Lake, Adelaide Tarn, and the remote Ministry of Works (MOW) Hut on the Mackay Downs, the latter he has visited 19 times.

Ten of those times he carried on along the challenging Saxon Ridge route down to Kahurangi Point.

Raised on a dairy farm at Waimauku, just south of Helensville, Paul joined the air force straight out from school, training as an aircraft mechanic, engineer and fitter. Just before he moved from Wigram, he joined the base’s Outdoor Activities Team, his first trip being to White River Hut up the Waimakariri Valley.

Tramper extraordinaire Paul Kilgour atop Mt Gibbs overlooking upper Cobb Valley

He recalls walking with his pack on his back and thinking “This is it! This is it!”

The bug bit so hard he would do 56 overnight trips in the last year before he left the air force, aged 26. A trekking expedition to Everest base camp and beyond followed before returning to work for the NZ Forest Service doing track and hut maintenance, along with animal counts.

Other jobs since have included school and tourist bus driving, apple picking, managing the Mt Cook YHA, and working at Rototai Lodge.

More lately his biodiversity work with DOC took him on predator monitoring on Stewart Island, Murchison Mountains ‘Takahe Country’ in Fiordland, Doubtful Sound, Hollyford and Pyke Valleys, and Coal Island off Puysegar Point at Preservation Inlet.

In December 2007, he departed that south-western corner of the South Island to walk back to Golden Bay, his intention to work up both sides of the main divide. It took him 48 days to get to Takapo; “Extremely challenging country, some days I walked 15 hours just to escape the sandflies.”

Janet Huddleston, left, and Paul Kilgour, facing camera, amongst giant tussocks and megaherbs approaching Northwest Bay on Campbell Island.

Paul went back to complete the rest of journey one year later, leaving Tekapo and coming out at Uruwhenua 37 days later.

The longest stretch was the 14 days from Tekapo to where he crossed the highway at Cass, one of only three road crossings in the whole traverse.

In 2011, he and partner Janet Huddleston travelled to our Sub-Antarctic Islands as part of a 47-passenger Heritage Expedition cruise on the Spirit of Enderby, which departed from Bluff.

The nine-day return journey took them first to the Snares where they cruised by inflatable zodiac around its fascinating kelp and Snares crested penguin-lined inlets. It took 30 hours in rolling seas to get to Campbell Island where passengers got landed to explore the largely unforested, windswept island where the huge concentrations of soaring albatross never fail to impress.

Here, Paul ‘bagged’ Tucker Cove Hut, an old coast watchers 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.

Stella Hut, one of the surviving castaway depots on the Auckland Islands, this one on Enderby Island

That old research hut became Paul’s 1034th hut that he has visited in New Zealand; incidentally on a day he would record 1034 bars on his barometer – just the sort of detail he gets off on.

He recalls; “It was one of those perfect days, and it stayed like that too, unusual for down there. Some DOC staff came aboard for dinner, one of them requiring medical assistance for a serious sealion bite to his knee.

“In his 24 years of sea lion research, this is the first time the expert had ever stepped on a sleeping sea lion.”

At the Auckland Islands, the ship anchored in Carnley Harbour and again up by Enderby Island, allowing them to explore ashore again. This entailed pushing up through the thin band of scratchy, dense rata forest so they could negotiate the more open country above it.

One of the historic fingerposts on the Auckland Islands intended to direct shipwrecked sailors to the castaway depots

Wind-eroded wooden fingerposts around the coast of the Auckland Islands still point and indicate distance in miles to old castaway depots like Stella Hut which has been restored. Inside that one a sea lion-proof heavy steel drum contained survival provisions, which included not only basics like matches, tea, flour, sugar, muskets and ammunition to shoot seals, but also tobacco and pipes.

Another hut Paul and Janet visited in Ranui Cove at Port Ross at the northern end of Auckland Island was a coast watchers hut built in 1941. It was 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.’

Yet another hut they got invited in to visit see was a DOC staff hut located at Sandy Bay on Enderby Island, the beach there packed with sea lions.

“Nothing is flash down here. The huts are quite small and basic. It was great to see such a range of structures, from run down and restored historic ones right through to ones currently in use. All in all, it was an amazing trip. Everyone was abuzz with excitement at everything we kept seeing, especially all the amazing wildlife”.

From the very outset the 22 strong Russian crew showed their superstitious aversion to anyone whistling onboard, in case it ‘whistled up a storm’. One persistent passenger offender got his ear tugged by the stern dining room matron.

Getting back from that trip took some adjustment. “When I heard a radio and TV, I had to switch it all off. Coming back from the wilderness is always huge.”

These days, Paul admits his body is showing a bit of wear and tear; “I get a few aches and pains when I set out, but you push through it and you’re away.”

His latest trip was just last month, around the Silver Peaks north of Dunedin.

“Being out there still brings me back to reality, makes me appreciate all the little things that matter. Each day brings you a sense of achievement and fulfilment, and reminds you of the beauty that is in everything and every moment”