West Coast New Zealand
Burgulars Hut, Moeraki River, West Coast New Zealand
🌲sometimes we simply go on holiday - this is one of those times 🌲
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My mum & dad have a pretty amazing piece of history tucked away deep in Mount Aspiring National Park and I would love to share this wonderful story with you all 🌲
Its hard to decide where to begin with this story, I guess giving a brief background of the whitebait world that I know of from my dad would be an ideal place to start.
Back in the 80’s all along the Moeraki River on the West Coast (and many other rivers in NZ where whitebait is found) my dad and his mates would flock here during the season (mid Sep - mid Nov)
Dad & his mates would hike into the river and set up camp for weeks on end while they set nets & caught whitebait.
Whitebaiting is no easy task - its often freezing cold and requires you to be in the nippy glacier water from time to, its also an early start with some heading out at 3am.
Along a river on the West Coast around the 60’s & early 70’s - 4 very simple and rustic whitebait huts were built, my dad & his mates would be fishing on one side of the river in their tents.
They were eyeing out these huts from their cold tents, wondering if they could possibly buy one – somehow!
Now my dad is such a talker, he’s just amazing, loves a good old yarn, still does not own a mobile - never will. So one day he wandered up to the hut and asked if it would ever be for sale. Turns out the owner of the hut had recently passed away and his son was left wondering what to do with it – Dad, Stu & Russel bought the hut then and there with a handshake and a few bob. They all went thirds, and that is how this wonderful hut has come into our lives 🌲
You can just imagine the pure excitement of these 3 lads as they landed their new pad! Dad, Stuie & Russel immediately set about decking out their hut. It was their pride & joy, & rightly so! Its pure paradise.
They purchased the hut for cash in 1993, it was very simple then, its extremely isolated and the forest had grown right up against it when they bought it, it has no power and had no running water. But the boys were hardy and super handy, and today - Burglars Hut has solar panels that run the much loved stereo, a flushing toilet, a shower that has hot water that runs through the coal range!
Everything - absolutely everything in the hut was carried in through the bush by hand, including the coal range! Its about a 20min walk into the hut from the car park through thick beautiful untouched wilderness, some tress are over 1000 years old - can you imagine carrying a coal range through it! And they have had 3 coal ranges in the hut in the 25 years they have had it - so 3 times they have trudged through the forest, carrying a coal range!
Along with everything that is carried in - everything, absolutely everything is also carried out, all rubbish, every last scrap is carried out and disposed of correctly once back in civilisation. I love this hut with all my heart and I feel very very honored that it is part of my history, and that we - the kids, are now able to access it 🌲
Each year the guys would allocate 2 or 3 weeks each during the whitebait season, sometimes they would all spend time together there, or they would go it alone.
And over the years, as their children grew into adults, they allowed us to also appreciate the huts remote beauty.
Never before in my life, have I experienced such untouched wilderness. This forest here is the worlds most safest forest in my humble opinion - and I have traveled to hundreds of forests all over the world. If you walk the paths at night, you might spot deer, there are glowworms dottled along the paths by the river, its pure magic. During the day you will see Paradise Ducks, Fantails, Robins, an abundance of Wood Pigeons & Eels in the river, so friendly that you can literally call them by tapping a rock in the river to which they respond!
The trees will blow you away with their majesty, the towering Rimu trees, some that are thousands of years old, dominate the skyline, and the hundreds of different types of moss will literally have you lying on the forest floor to indulge in their softness.
And then the most amazing thing to top all this off - is a short boat ride, or you can kayak, its about 1km along the river from the hut - to the river mouth which leads you to the worlds most wild & untouched beach that is pretty much only accessible by boat - so normally, not one soul is in sight, its pure bliss indeed!
Today sadly only 2 huts remain, 2 huts were tragically burnt down a few years ago, the second hut The Shady Rest belongs to my mum & dads mate and current neighbor in Oamaru Ski and a few of his buddies. They too have a similar story of how they bought their hut a few years before my Dad bought Burglars Hut. Ski’s hut is exceptional!
Dad, Stu & Russel, I thank you all from the bottom of my heart for carving out this history, for savoring it for generations to come, thank you for the photo albums in the hut and the log book so I was able to tell this story, thank you for telling me your stories so I can now pass them onto Frankie, and thank you for everything! I am so truly grateful to you all!
Love Anna x
all photos by Anna - Pixie Rouge Photography 😘
