• Quite the Alpine backdrop.  | Rintoul Hut, Alpine Route, Mt Richmond Forest Park
  • This design for a hut works really well, particularly if you are the only resident. | Hunters Hut, Alpine Route, Mt Richmond Forest Park
  • OK, so it's been recently repainted but this hut is a return to the 70s. | Mid Wairoa Hut, Alpine Route, Mt Richmond Forest Park
  • The hut is in the scrubby manuka shrubbery in distinct Red Hills territory. | Top Wairoa Hut, Alpine Route, Mt Richmond Forest Park

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45 almost epic adventures on the South Island & Rakiura

Mt Richmond Forest Park huts

There are plenty of huts in Mt Richmond Forest Park, and that includes the ones along the Te Araroa Trail route. They tend to be spaced at about four or five hours walk apart, which means if you are jumping huts, you can be in for some biggish days.

Many of the huts were built in the 1960s for the NZ Forest Service, primarily for deer cullers, and they are often of a standard six-bunk design called for some reason SF 70. A few are in fairly original condition. Top Wairoa hut retains an open fireplace that has elsewhere often been replaced with steel woodburner due to the wastage of wood or the risk of burning down the hut.

Most have been somewhat renovated, with insulation added and louvre windows replaced, and are comfy enough, at least when not full to capacity. There are fireproof mattresses, a woodburner for winter heating, stainless steel benches, etc.