what do people think

yea replace the Heaphy Track with a 4 lane motorway.

Nah, I would prefer one to follow the coast and for it to connect onto Cowin Road. Would open up heaps more of the beach for fishing :)

They only need to construct another 50km of road to complete the loop :) Would also like a direct road from Murchison to Karamea :)

I think you will find that the people who have been advocating for the completion of the Karamea to Nelson route as well as the Haast to Hollyford route have interests in the construction industry. They want the government to pay so that they can get rich and then bugger off. Communities like Karamea are far better off being the road end terminus to the popular Heaphy Track. Imagine if a road went through. Everyone would drive through at 100k and that would be that. One of the best ideas I heard as an alternative to the Haast Hollyford link was the idea of a car ferry from Milford to Haast. What a wonderful idea that would be.

http://www.doc.govt.nz/about-doc/news/media-releases/new-hut-vandalised/

Education? Make them do the repair work? At least make them pay for it? Name and shame? Hang them? What do you think?

Strangely I don't think that this type of vandalism is as common as it used to be. I think this is because there are less young people tramping. Back in the 1970s the old Green Hut in the Silver Peaks near Dunedin actually fell down because after all the bunks and table had been demolished to feed the fireplace, they started to remove the hut framing from the inside. The cause was lots of young people going to this hut for the weekend. The hut was about 2 hrs walk in. I think trampers tend to be a bit older and more thoughtful now so there is less of this. Mind you, in even earlier days, carving your name in the hut door or fireplace was a right of passage. I remember my father proudly pointing out his name carved in the fireplace of the old Routeburn Flats Hut. The door of that hut was littered with the names of many people, who are now famous, who tramped and climbed in the Otago Mountains in the 1930s and 40s. That door is actually preserved by DOC as a museum piece.

I must admit, I quite enjoy reading the graffiti at times in old huts... Kind of like a permanent hut log book. I never added to it myself.