Snuggle up at ... Shutes Hut

One of the best examples of a stone hut in the North Island, Shutes Hut was named after Alex Shute, who exiled himself to the wilderness in order to banish the bottle.

Shutes Hut, Ruahine Forest Park

This wee four-bunker was built 100 years ago for the owners of nearby Big Hill Station. One of the builders, Alex Shute, then took to living there; as an alcoholic, he found that sticking to the wilderness helped him stay off the happy juice. Word is he used to freak out (and hence ward off) potential visitors by displaying erratic behaviour such wrestling with his coat and wandering around naked. Shutes Hut is around 3-4 hours’ from the Comet Road end in the depths of the Kawekas. Signs say 2-3 hours but it’s a big hill to get in there (and out again), so don’t believe everything you read, especially as Kaweka time is optimistic at best. Here’s the hut in all its restored glory, thanks to the volunteers of the Backcountry Trust. It’s had a birthday, changing from DoC Rescue Orange to this fetching red.

We started on tired legs from another adventure, and camping out the night before at Kuripapango (highly recommended for a pristine river swim). The track initially climbs for 200m, mostly zig-zagging, overgrown in places but not difficult, before emerging to Komata trig (now hidden by the trees) at 1083m. We relished the flat plateau walking after the short climb. Here I am being excited. You can tell I’m excited, because I have my poles in the air and this is what excited people do.

Look closely at the undergrowth and you’ll spot some (non)magical mushrooms. It’s like something straight out of an Enid Blyton book. Maybe that’s why she managed to write so prolifically? Was Enid on the mushies? A closer look at her biography reveals she enjoyed playing nude tennis, a pastime that feels like it’s one or two steps away from indulging in hallucinogenics, so perhaps I am onto something.

The area, like much of the Kawekas, has been taken over by wilding pine, which is sort of the Antichrist crossed with a bunny, in terms of how evil it is combined with the enthusiasm with which it replicates itself. On the Komata tops I found it amusing that people had previously gone to the trouble of building a cairn, although the track is so obvious amongst the trees; perhaps it wasn’t always that way, and once required cairned guidance. I love pine, but I know it’s problematic. In the Kawekas they were once enthusiastically tipping sacks of seed of pinus contorta out of planes, thinking it would help control hillside erosion, and desperately hoping it would take. (Ahem, it did. If you’re interested, head to this excellent NZ Geographic story.)

In places the forest is misty and moody, and it’s like walking through a greyscale tunnel. Maybe this was also once bare?

I compared the topo maps on mapspast.org.nz, and it seems to have experienced some growth of forest and shrub in recent decades. Here’s a topo map screengrab from 1979, showing much of the area on the flat tops devoid of growth:

After around 1.5 hours of easy walking, it’s time to descend 700m directly to the valley floor, where the Taruarau River awaits us. It’s uncomfortably hot and sweaty and we’re both hanging out for a swim. In places there are short glimpses out to the hills beyond. In other spots, there’s phone reception, and we find out the whole country is going to the red traffic light and the world as we know it is about to run amok. Best turn on airplane mode again, if that sort of caper is happening, and perhaps conserve what precious toilet paper we already have.

Kristin, my tramping buddy, snaps a pic of me surveying my kingdom. I’m fairly sure I was having lustful thoughts about river swims and quality snacks, rather than thoughts of taking over the world starting with a remote forest park. Particularly a world going mad with Covid - it’s unappealing real estate, for sure. Incidentally, this is Kristin’s first time in the Kawekas and I don’t think she quite knew what she was signing up for (she has since forgiven me).

Finally we hit the Taruarau River after a long sidle from the bottom of the direct descent, and the river water is emerald green and just the right shade of cold. So it’s straight in, boots and all, and then I do laps of the river by walking up a way and letting the flow carry me down. Then my boots are full of gravel and suddenly the limbs have gotten a bit cold.

We soon warm up again well before we reach Shutes Hut. The track isn’t quite as it’s marked on the topo here, either, but it’s not difficult to follow. Shutes Hut is set in a clearing and reputedly there are fruit trees around. It’s been well cared for by the Backcountry Trust and some regular enthusiasts.

Inside, I’m delighted by the hand-hewn bunks and how well it’s been restored, to preserve the historicity. (Is that a word? Historicalness.)

The hut book has this nifty holder on the wall and frankly a Ponsonby-based graphic designer couldn’t have made it look better. The original hut book has been removed - apparently it was in residence for some time - but another large-format one has been there for several decades. I found a mate’s entry from 1990 when he did a solo traverse of the Ruahines.

Then our Uber Eats delivery man arrives in the helicopter with our KFC.

Not really, of course. That was a volunteer from the Backcountry Trust, Jason, who dropped in to sort out the lawns. We made him a hot chocolate, quizzed him about his volunteer work, and waved our sporks around enthusiastically. As you do in the backcountry. Hilariously, when the chopper came in we were both wearing not very much clothing - because it was so hot - and I grabbed a lot of items outside so the heli wouldn’t blow them away. This story seemed to translate into something else on the social media grapevine: That there were two ‘partially dressed’ ladies at the hut and the heli had blown all their clothes away. Where there’s smoke, there’s fire…

We finished off our hot trip in with a dip in the Shute’s Hut Spa, in the stream very close by. If only we’d had a cold spa on the walk out back up that big hill the next day…

Trip: Shutes Hut, Ruahine Forest Park. Grade: Easy-moderate. Time: 3-4 hours. Features: Bush spa (cold), a very big hill, river swims, and a rustic stone hut.