Hut Fees

Good point @izogi. Re actually getting tickets, if it was going to be a hassle getting tickets for a last minute trip I'd just buy extra on my next trip and put extra in the huts I was going to. Not an exact science as the tickets would be in the wrong huts, but my conscience would be clear.

The problem with that is that Doc use the tickets plus recorded hut passes as a measure of how used a hut is. If you go to a unpopular hut and then pay for it at a popular one you are telling doc that twice as many go to the popular one than is actually the case and that no one goes to the other one so it can come down. You can put cash in the tin to pay on the day although it is frowned on and you can pay doc after the fact

More for convenience than to offer a fool-proof way of ensuring people pay: How about.... Give each hut a barcode. Users turn up with a smartphone and scan the barcode using an approved app, possibly indicating to pay for multiple people. Wardens can confirm that people either have a regular ticket, or have scanned the barcode and registered their staying within the app. Next time the smartphone gets reception, either during the trip or after returning, it transmits details, and possibly immediate payment, to DOC. Maybe people can even take photos and write comments about stuff that needs fixing, for near-future transmission, instead of ranting about it in a hut book that won't be read for ages. Obviously people can stop their phones from transmitting that last part if they chose to do so, esp when the hut itself has no reception, or they can not scan it at all if there's no warden present anyway, but this is as much about convenience for paying as anything else. It means people who never got around to planning payment before they left, and might never get around to it after they return (even if they'd had good intentions) can still do so when they're actually there, and there's no tech required in the hut beyond a barcode on the wall. It also provides richer info to DOC about hut use. The tinfoil hat brigade would avoid it like the plague, of course, and then complain about their favourite huts being removed.

@geeves - yep that's why I said it's not an exact science. @izogi - as a millennial, sign me up for everything you just said !!!

Agree izogi and evo. In this day and age the old stick a blue ticket in a metal honesty box seems umm...old fashioned. Obviously annual hut passes are the way to go but......heres an example: My sons mate was heading off to lake Daniels on Monday for an overnighter.i gave him one of my spare hut tickets and he wondered what it was and what he should do with it. He is a 20 year old,budding tramper,but had no idea what that blue bit of paper was for.

i dont think doc are interested at developing any new technology for booking huts, you should be a lot more concerned about them removing as many of them as they can get away with in the future. if they arent reasonably full for summer you may find yourself kissing goodbye to those ones

We need to make sure we record our stays in the hut books. Also, when I stay at the 'barns', I record how many people actually stayed there and point out to DoC (in the hutbook) what the percentage of folks that wrote in the hutbook was. Sometimes it's only 50% of folks that write in the 'barn' hut books. Of course, in the remote huts it's 100% compliance!

On our way to Hapuka Hut (Kaikoura) we passed 4 groups of trampers and hunters, about 10 in all, all of whom told us they stayed at the hut, and NONE of them were in the log book!

Good idea @Honora to record the total number of people staying at the hut in the hut book. That would provide some useful data for DOC to see what fees they are potentially missing out on, providing the evidence isn't destroyed by people before DOC get to see it of course.

its going to be too late to complain that they are using huts after its been removed or realise it wasnt such a good idea not to pay hut fees and avoid signing the log book.. DOC arent going to put them back.