Mini Huts

by Kemi Niko

Made with the spirit and integrity of the backcountry; from salvaged materials to handcrafted construction.

Each month we’ll handcraft a batch of one specific hut, showcasing the process and delving into the history of the real hut.

Poet Hut

Mungo River, Paparoa National Park, West Coast

Poet hut is an iconic B48 4-bunk hut built by the Westland NZFS in 1957. It is one of a handful built in this uniquely West Coast design before national hut standards started to be introduced a year later. You can still find the Intentions Book and it’s poems from 1968 in the hut.


Its distinctive colouring and inspiring name caught our attention and it has been one of our most popular designs. We’ve made a couple of videos showing how we make Poet Hut; Part 1 (making the chimney) and Part 2 (putting it all together) 


Grey & green hut with orange tipped chimney


Limited numbers available 

Mini Hut Ingredients

_{Made in Aotearoa}

½ Large tin can, slab of reclaimed rimu or pine, hours of time and attention, years of experimentation, a healthy dose of hut obsession.

Every hut comes with a corrigated info card & map hidden in its chimney

$145

inc GST

Blue Range Hut

Tararua Forest Park, Wairarapa

A charming 4 bunk hut built in 1958 by the Masterton Tramping Club. The hut is adorned with quirky signage including ‘no parking’ and ‘antenatal clinic’ signs.


Blue hut with lean-to & chimney flue

Cone Hut

Tararua Forest Park, Wairarapa

Built in ’46 and rebuilt with the same materials in the early ‘80s by Aotearoa’s first tramping club, the Tararua Tramping Club. One of the best surviving examples of a totara ‘slab hut.’

Rimu hut with green roof and chimney

Goat Creek Hut

Old Ghost Road, Mōkihinui River, West Coast

This hut was built in 1957, and renovated in 2013. It has character in buckets, and you can sweep the floor straight out the door.

Grey hut with orange roof and chimney

Old Waihohonu Hut

Tongariro National Park, Tūrangi

An intriguing two room hut built in 1904 with pit sawn totara. The first hut built in Tongariro National Park and the oldest existing mountain hut in Aotearoa.



Monochrome red hut with chimney 

Mount Brown Hut

Lake Kaniere, West Coast

A feat of community efforts, it spent its first 50 years in Lower Arahura Valley before being flown up Mt Brown in sections and reconstructed entirely. This NZFS 4-bunk S81 design graces the cover of hut tome, “Shelter From The Storm.”



Orange hut with rimu deck

Dog Box Biv

Eyre Mountains, Southland

The smallest hut in the land, this historic biv was built around 1916 for horseback musterers whose names are still etched into the chimney and pencilled on the walls.



Silver and rust hut with chimney

Slaty Creek Hut

Waiheke River, West Coast

An historic early style of hunters hut built in the ‘50’s said to have been restored by Dave a few years back. Significant for its now rare beech slab construction.

Rimu hut with red roof and chimney

Slip Flat Hut

Greenstone and Caples Conservation Area

Just off Greenstone Trail you’ll find no signage to this character filled, three bunk hut. Flagstones on the floor, an open fireplace, low ceilings, and a deer head beside the entrance completed the decor.

Dark green wooden hut with light green chimney

Rocks Ahead Hut

Kaweka Forest Park, Hawkes Bay

A classic 4 bunk hut located on the true left bank of the Ngaruroro River, at the junction of three major tracks. A popular base for hunting, angling and kayaking missions.


Monochrome orange hut with chimney
   

Bealey Spur Hut

Arthurs Pass National Park, Canterbury

This basic six-bunk hut has local historic significance for its role in high country sheep farming. Built in 1935, it has an open fire with a tin chimney and spring mesh bunks attached to beech pole framing. It remained unpainted until 1997 when it got its first coat of green.


Green hut with chimney

Cecil Kings Hut

Kahurangi National Park, Nelson Tasman

A surviving hut of depression era gold mining. Cecil King, a well known local identity, claimed that he built it alone from a single Red Beech in 1935. Its a four-bunk hut, beech pole framed, clad in wooden slabs and roofed with shingles (later covered with iron).

Rimu hut with lean to & chimney on the side