Wednesday, November 09, 2016

A Bunk For The Night - A guide to the best huts to visit in New Zealand’s backcountry


New Zealand has a huge range of backcountry huts, most of which are available for public use. Some can sleep 80 people, while others are tiny two-bunk affairs with not even room to stand up in. They are located in our mountains, on the edges of our fiords, coastlines and lakes, beside rivers, in the bush and on the open tops. Together they form an internationally unique network of backcountry shelter, and these huts, so often full of character and history, are destinations in their own right.

A Bunk for the Night offers a guide to over 200 of the best of these huts to visit. This inspirational guide has been written by Shaun Barnett, Rob Brown and Geoff Spearpoint, the authors of the seminal, best-selling history of New Zealand’s backcountry huts Shelter from the Storm, and this new book has been written as a companion volume.

Featuring well-known tramping huts in the major mountain axis of the North Island, Tongariro and Egmont national parks, as well as the Southern Alps, Fiordland and Stewart Island, the authors have also scoured the country for other interesting huts in out-of-the-way places, such as those in the Bay of Islands, on Banks Peninsula, in the

Whanganui hinterland, the Takitimu Mountains and the dry ranges of Marlborough. From the famous huts of our Great Walk tracks to the obscurity of bivs with names like ‘Turkeys Nest’ and ‘Brass Monkey’, this is a wonderful smorgasbord of must-visit huts, and an essential book for New Zealand’s large tramping community/interest in New Zealand’s recent social and political history.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Since beginning to tramp as teenager in the Kaweka and Ruahine ranges, Shaun Barnett has tramped the length and breadth of New Zealand, including a piecemeal traverse of the Southern Alps from St Arnaud to Milford Sound. Shaun cowrote the Montana Award-winning Classic Tramping in New Zealand (with Rob Brown) along with several other best-selling guidebooks. Shelter from the Storm: The story of New Zealand’s backcountry huts (with Rob Brown and Geoff Spearpoint) won the New Zealand Booksellers’ Choice Award in 2013. His most recent book Tramping: A New Zealand history, co-authored with Chris Maclean, was long-listed for the 2016 Ockham Book Awards.

Geoff Spearpoint began tramping in the Tararuas, spending his first night in a hut (Cone) during 1966 when he was 15. He joined the Hutt Valley Tramping Club and later the New Zealand Alpine Club (and is now a life member of both) following a passion of transalpine tramping and climbing trips. Prior to co-authoring Shelter from the Storm, Geoff wrote Walking to the Hills, various articles for club journals and Wilderness magazine, edited Moir’s Guide North, co-authored The
Canterbury Westland Alps and contributed a chapter to Wild Heart. A member of the Peninsula Tramping Club, Geoff lives in his own hut at Birdlings Flat on the Canterbury Coast.

Rob Brown has been tramping and climbing throughout New Zealand for over 25 years. A co-author of Shelter from the Storm and Classic Tramping in New Zealand, Rob also authored Rakiura: The Wilderness of Stewart Island and New Zealand: The Essential Landscape. His photographs also feature in many calendars including his own Wild Landscapes calendar, which has been published annually for well over a decade. Rob lives with his family in Wanaka.

$49.99
Potton & Burton
ISBN: 978 0 947503 06 2

No comments: