This blog explores huts in the high mountains, dramatic Fiordland or icy Antarctica. Some huts are located on this country’s beautiful landscape and make an internationally distinctive statement and icon, some are functional for local farming and mining, while others mark scientific importance across the ages.

A tramper’s journey : stories from the back country of New Zealand / Pickering, Mark
“A celebration of the culture and spirit of tramping in New Zealand. Mark Pickering takes both a serious and humorous look at tramping from a personal perspective. This is one of the few books on tramping which attempts to explain the appeal of an activity which can be strenuous, uncomfortable and often dangerous, but brings its own unique rewards as a result of the effort.” (Catalogue)

Huts : untold stories from back-country New Zealand / Pickering, Mark
“If huts could talk they could tell the whole history of the back country. Of Scottish shepherds who arrived in the high country with the fresh, vivid memories of the Highland Clearances. Of the flush and fury of goldminers and water-racemen in Central Otago. Of the patient and poorly paid jobs of boundary keepers, musterers and roadmen, who lived in tiny huts in the shadow of huge landscapes. Some of the 1500 huts in New Zealand tells the social and mountain history.” (Adapted from the Catalogue)

The daily journal of an Antarctic explorer, 1956-1958 / Warren, Guyon
“Guyon Warren was one of a small group of men who spent 15 consecutive months in the Antarctic in the late 1950s. Warren was a member and geologist of Sir Edmund Hillary’s team travelling from South Pole to the Ross Sea. With his exploration on the ice he helped established Scott Base, right from the construction of the first hut. In this book he rewards you with insights into the day-to-day conditions experienced by himself and his colleagues in the Antarctic.” (Adapted from the Catalogue)

A bunk for the night : a guide to New Zealand’s best backcountry huts / Barnett, Shaun
“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 to even stand up within. They are located in our mountains, on the edges of fiords, coastlines and lakes, beside rivers and in the bush. Together they form an internationally unique network of backcountry shelter, which are full of character and history, are fantastic destinations.” (Adapted from the Catalogue)

Shelter from the storm : the story of New Zealand’s backcountry huts / Barnett, Shaun
“One of the defining and unique features of the New Zealand outdoors is the backcountry hut. Built by mountaineering clubs and environmental organisations, these huts were made for farming, mining, tourism, tramping, hunting, science and as monuments.” (Adapted from the Catalogue)

Historic sheep stations of New Zealand / Wheeler, Colin
“Between 1967 and 1970 Colin Wheeler and his wife Phyllis travelled thousand miles and visited 60 of New Zealand’s historic sheep stations across New Zealand. It was a time when sheep farming was the most important agricultural, yet some stations remained isolated communities. Wheeler draw the interiors of old cottages, blacksmith’s shops, rabbiting huts, sod-walled school-houses, grand homesteads; bailing hooks, sack needles, hand sheers, wool wagons; shepherds; musterers and cooks.” (Adapted from the Catalogue)

Gone bush : a life in the backcountry and beyond / Kilgour, Paul
“The story of a wanderer, long-distance tramper and hut-bagging legend. Paul began going on epic trips, beyond the farm and along the coast. During these wanderings, he met old folk living simply in tiny huts on farms and on clifftops, and swaggers walking in remote and beautiful locations. It tells stories of the eccentric characters he met along the way, some of the 1200 huts he’s visited, and his most unforgettable journeys, including his ‘long walk home’ from deepest Fiordland to the top of Golden Bay.” (Adapted from the Catalogue)

Hideaways : where New Zealanders escape / Stuchbury, Sam
“Hideaways celebrates the quintessential New Zealand holiday spot: mountain huts, coastal baches, riverside cribs, converted silos, hunting shacks, and more”–Publisher information.” (Catalogue)