Eel Creek Hut Renovation

Permolat Southland Volunteers

Greg Wilson, Karen Nicholson, John MacDonald, Annabel Newnam, Lois Bishop, Geoff Jukes (Boat Skipper), Bruce Best(Boat skipper), Adam Smith(Boat Skipper), John Hutt, Callum Mclean(Boat Skipper), Scott, Theo, Ian Laurenson, Warrick Anderson.

Also involved: Wairaurahiri Jet, Southland Sheet Metal, Marshall Industries, Metro Glass, Department Of Conservation (DOC), Back Country Cuisine, Back Country Trust.

Volunteer hours : Approximately 360 hours of Volunteer labour.

August 2021

Greg Wilson and Karen Nicholson paddled up Lake Monowai in Packraft and Kayak and surveyed the Eel Creek Hut, which was built in 1964. The hut is situated approximately 17km up Lake Monowai in Fiordland National Park, where they made a list of jobs required and measuring everything that could be measured.

Application was made to DOC Te Anau for permission to do the work and then an application for funding was made to Back Country Trust.

Materials were Supplied By Tuatapere Outdoors and Hardware, Marshall Industries, Southland Sheet Metal, and Metro Glass. All Materials were transported up Lake Monowai on March 11th 2022 by Johan of Wairaurahiri jet along with Sandy Sanderson, Ian Laurensen, Warrick Anderson, and John Hutt to help load and unload.

The old leaky Eel Creel Hut

The Hut Transformation

March 12th 2022 saw our volunteers gather at the Lake Monowai boat ramp for a safety briefing before loading tools and camping gear into boats and heading to Eel Creek Hut.

Hutty (John Hutt) had stayed at the hut after helping bring the materials in the day before and when the rest of us arrived he had already stripped the roofing iron, netting and silver paper off the dexion frame.

Over the next 4 days

With up to 12 volunteers working on several jobs in the same small clearing it was a busy worksite. We cleaned and wire brushed the dexion frame before painting it with cold galve paint ( there are a lot of surfaces on a dexion frame), painted one side of the ply sheets before fitting them to the frame, removed the lower part of the old rusty chimney and found the fireplace to be worse than expected so removed that as well. Rebuilt the fireplace using the steel insert we had had made before hand.

A new woodshed was built at the edge of the clearing, the damaged cladding of the toilet was removed and replaced and the toilet building was painted. Roofing paper and battens were fitted over the ply and coloursteel fitted on the outside.

The door was repaired and a new jamb fitted. One side of the porch was enclosed to create space for boots and packs etc outside of the hut. The small louvre windows in the apex of the gable ends were removed and in the process one frame was found to be broken. Both windows were rebuilt as best as we could with new glass at the south end. Gravel was laboriously wheelbarrowed from the beach to make an all-weather pathway and a large rock which has been stubbing toes for decades was removed.

With near perfect weather the whole time we tried to make time for a bit of hunting and fishing each day with some of us camping at Eel Creek and others boating across to the Monowai Hut each night. As the weekend progressed some volunteers left to go back to normal life leaving only seven of us to finish the last day.

Unique Challenges

Sandflies, fitting metric materials to an imperial building and adjusting to the unique shape of Eel creek hut (an A frame hut that wasn’t an equal triangle and leans toward the lake).

Catering

Back Country Cuisine supplied lots of food for us. So, evening meals were easy and quick to prepare and made dinner a social occasion for everyone. John MacDonald needs to be specially mentioned for organising this sponsorship and for providing communal cooking gear and cutlery etc. This made the whole experience so much better.

We packed all the old rubbish and iron etc. for pickup by Johan of Wairaurahiri Jet and left for home on the 15th in light rain. The hut looks really good and is now far more usable. All team members were great to work with and their efforts are much appreciated.

HOW TO GET INVOLVED

If you’d like to get involved in looking after huts and tracks, get in touch with your local Permolat group.