So, where are you tramping over the weekend?

Here's a good tent story you might like, when something did go wrong. It was the first trip I went on with my Microlite tent and I was determined to use it. It was around Mt Taranaki and we arrived at the Camphouse on North Egmont late on Fridat night. Everyone else just went inside but I was determined to give my new tent an airing, despite the rain. I ran around the building and found a nice flat grassy spot around the back. I quickly had the tent up, sleeping bag out, crawled out of my parka and into the tent, got dry and settled down. Sniff, sniff!! What's that smell. Yes, I can pitched my tent right on top of the septic tank! :-( Bugger! Too late to do anything about it now so put a peg on my nose and settled down to sleep.

As you started this storey im thinking taranaki camphouse soft spot? I admire your fortitude 8 hours on a pile of crap theres dedication for you.

haha, thats too funny! But that you stayed there, thats awesome!

Tramped up the Goulter river today to just past med Goulter hut. A nice gentle day walk, saw a deer. If I did not stop all the time to harass the trout it would only take half a day :) Hunters have left carcasses spread all over the river valley which is a bit gross. They could hide them in the bush.

Intact carcasses, or butchered? The former is normally a sign that DoC's been in doing search and destroy, as they have recently with Tahr in the Karangarua. Just leave 'em where they lie ... what a waste.

The deer carcasses were butchered and a few of the goats were. The valley is very popular with hunter.

Quite inconsiderate really. A few years back a possumer had stopped in the only clearing on a route in the Whirinaki and sat there in the sun skinning his possums. I don't mind seeing dead possums but a great pile of them, several days old at the place I had planned to stop for lunch wasn't appreciated. It's be a small extra effort to remove the scraps and bury them off the track somewhere.

I was reading back and found the discussion about tents. We always cary a shelter of some kind. It is part of being safe. The most annoying thing for me was when we arrived at Brass Monkey Biv and with no one else there we decided to spread out and stay in the biv. We had finished dinner and were just about to settle down when 2 people arrived. 8pm. No tent. No sleeping mats. Our only option was to pack up and move out into our tent. Because it was so late we did not have time to choose a really good camp sight so it was a very damp spot. I was even less impressed when I was making breakfast in the frost while they stumped about in the relative warmth of the biv.

I can sympathise with turning up late at night, as long as people make an effort to be as unintrusive as possible. (I show up late at night and early morning often enough!) I agree that not having appropriate shelter shouldn't be excusable, though. About a year ago, a group of eight walked up a river from a road-end to a hut where we'd already settled in, despite worsening weather... the river was flooded a couple of hours after they arrived. For eight people, they only had a two-person tent between them! We weren't convinced to move so they could have the bunks. We offered them the use of our tent flies to set up as shelter outside, but they decided to just borrow thermarests instead (which they also hadn't carried in), and scrunched themselves in all over the floor. Consequently we had 12 people crammed into a 6-bunk hut, with 2 more in the tent outside. I think this story was eclipsed by one I heard a few months ago though, from a chap who'd come down from Auckland and who I met in a hut in the Ruahines. Hopefully I have the details mostly correct. He visited Iron Bark Hut with a group of people, and they settled in as people do. Some time later a helicopter flew in, dropped off two tourists, a guide, and also a whole lot of extravagant food and cooking gear. There was only a single bunk left in the hut, though, and for some absurd reason the guide for the new arrivals hadn't air-lifted in any kind of tent or other shelter. Presumably he'd just *assumed* there would be space. Nobody was willing to move out of their bunks, and in the end the tourists (apparently not the guide) ended up sleeping outside under the stars. As he was explaining it to us, he decided that they probably weren't paying hut fees, either, but I don't think he had any evidence for that.

On the whole I have found people's hut etequette to be pretty good over the years. I have occasionally hogged my bunk claiming first in first served rights, feeling only slightly guilty, as I have watched lesser prepared partys settling in outside or on the floor. However usually, as soon as the hut looks slightly crowded, I am quite happy to evacuate to the comparative luxury of my one man tent. We had occasion to walk into the new Waitawheta Hut by a harder route than usual and as we approaced the hut were met with the loud roar of a helicopter. It was a party (literally) arriving with all the trimmings ready to enjoy the night. It was something to do with DOC rewarding people who were involved in building the hut. Meanwhile we were buggered and ready for sleep. The noise they made in the large echoing common room just gave me a whacking headache. Quite inappropriate behaviour if you ask me. I spent that night quite happily curled up in a corner at the far end of the verandah. But I did take one if not two of the valuable mattress with me.