Boo Boo Hut
(Boo Boo Hut: Photo Andrew Barker 2012)
Maintenance status
Boo Boo Hut is be minimally maintained for the medium-term. The longer term plan is to replace it
and Pinnacle Biv (located on the tops above Boo Boo)
with a single structure midway between the two current hut sites.
The track to Boo Boo from
the Kokatahi roadend is fully maintain, but quite overgrown currently and difficult to stay on in some places.
DOC is planning to recut it in the summer of 2011/12.
Location
Kokatahi catchment. Map
BV19.
GPS Ref: E1452973/
N5245567.
Altitude 594m. Boo Boo Hut is incorrectly marked on the topo map, 750m
further down (toward the roadend) the main valley track than indicated.
It is located on the bush faces high above the Whakarira Gorge. The forest was felled around the Hut
when it was built in the late 1950's, but is now regenerating, and the hutsite
has become shady and damp.
The name Boo Boo according to local history, originates from a cocked-up food drop
at a deer culler's camp at the current hutsite in the early 1950's.
The supply of tinned cheddar
for all the camps in the Kokatahi, along with the whole district's allocation of 128 tins
of raspberry jam, was mistakenly
air-dropped at the camp by mistake, and the name stuck.
Access
The track up to Boo Boo
from the road end is getting quite overgrown. DOC
has it down for a re-cut in the 2013/ 132 summer period.
The odd bit of informal marking, cruise-taping and trimming that has been done by volunteers
over the years, hasn't been enough to stem the advancing green tide.
Access to the track is up a farm trail on the TR of the Kokatahi River just before the bridge on the
Toaroha valley access road. Follow the trail through the paddocks
to the River. A short stretch of boulderhopping leads to more paddocks followed by a
section of track up the TR of the Kokatahi
to the Whakarira Gorge. This bit has been
cruise taped intermittently. There is quite a lot of
onga onga (bush nettle) on it.
At the Gorge a new bridge takes you over to the TL of the valley.
The view from the bridge is superb and is worth a visit in its own right.
There was flood debris on the hand
rail in 2011, which is pretty awsome given its height above the normal River level.
After the bridge the track continues upvalley for 15 minutes, dropping to the riverbed at
Adamsons Creek. The track re-enters the
bush 100m upriver from the Creek climb/ sidles steadily from here all the way to the Hut.
Bits of it were cruise-taped, permolated, and trimmed in 2004 and 2005
by volunteers. There is a fair bit of onga onga on this section also.
Allow 5-6 hours from the road end to Boo Boo currently.
There is a small regenerating clearing 20 metres up from the Pinnacle Biv turnoff (five
minutes downriver from the Hut) for helicopter access.
Type
The original Boo Boo Hut was a standard 4-bunk NZFS 1950's design with an open fire.
A woodshed and covered porch were added in the early 80's during Lands and Survey's tenure
of the valley. DOC relaced the fireplace with a wood burner in early 2012.
There is a toilet, and water is from a small creek
next to the Hut.
Condition
DOC did some maintenance on Boo Boo in 2012 comprising exterior painting, replacing the fireplace with a woodburner, replacing the novalite
on the roof, and cutting back some of the regenerating bush around the hut.
The floor is uneven despite some repiling
work and replacement of bearers over the years. There is a leak in the centre of the porch roof where the studs meet
and a minor bit of moisture on the floor boards just below the hinged side of the door.
The flashing around the new flue has a significant drip and the water pools at the back left corner of the fire box,
making the concrete hearth quite damp. The concrete appears quite porous so it is soaking up the moisture.
Luckily water does not run back onto the timber work.
DOC also did some bush clearing work at the helipad down at the Pinnacle turn-off.
Routes
The track upvalley from Boo Boo is notofficially maintained. Permolat volunteers recut and marked
a particularly troublesome section as far as the Twins swingbridge in 2005.
This has started to overgrow again and while the marking is still good in many places,
care needs to be taken exiting and re-entering the bush around creeks and slips. Andrew Barker recut the track
again in January 2012, as far as the point where the track drops directly down to Pinnacle Creek
(about the 400 metre contour, Ref. E1453517/N5244218).
The rest of the route is rough and rudimentary and not for the inexperienced.
From Boo Boo the track climb-sidles across the bush faces, crosses some regenerating
sips.
There is a dry rock on the track the high-point of the sidle and some larger and more weatherproof ones
20m uphill from it. There is no good water
supply here unfortunately.
The track drops from here in a series of steps down towards Pinnacle Creek. Access into the Creek is down a steep gut
150 or so vertical metres. Once in the Creek head upstream 150 or so meters, then climb out on the TR up a
regenerating slip, and drop over a narrow rib into Alice Creek. Cross the Alice on an upward diagonal and go
up an old regenerating slip on its TR onto the terrace between it and Meharry Creek. The
track heads uphill through the bush for 150m, then crosses Meharry Creek onto the terrace
and the clearing where Twins Hut used to be.
From here the track drops steeply from the terrace to the swingbridge. Allow 2-3 hours currently
from Boo Boo to the bridge.
A dry-weather shortcut from Pinnacle Creek that reduces travel time by
around 20 minutes involves dropping
down Pinnacle Creek to the Kokatahi River and boulderhopping up the TL
to the swingbridge. Two small bluffs need to be sidled at river level on this route.
The first, just upstream from Pinnacle Creek, is crumbly bedrock and may not appeal to
the non-agile.
From Twins bridge it's River travel up the TR all the way up
to Crawford Junction. Several short scub-bashes are required on this section to
negotiate boulders or small bluffs. The Crawford River can usually be forded
directly opposite Crawford Junction Hut at normal flows.
Otherwise use the swingbridge at the foot of Whitehorn Spur 15 minutes up the Crawford River.
The Twins bridge is going to be replaced by a three-wire and minimally maintained. The Crawford bridge
is now likely to be removed at some point making it essentially a fine weather route up the mid valley.
Allow 2.5-3 hours from Twins swingbridge to Crawford Junction.
There is a fairly popular three-day tops traverse taking in Boo Boo Hut,
Pinnacle Biv and Adventure Biv,
which exits via the Toaroha valley.
The Pinnacle Biv turnoff is
five minutes downvalley from Boo Boo Hut (about 750m further along the main valley track
than indicated on the topo map). The track up to the Biv
is getting quite overgrown in places. The section from the bushline to the Biv is snow-poled. The more overgrown bits
of this trail were cruise-taped in October 2004. Allow four hours to get up to
Pinnacle from Boo Boo.
Repairs needed
More sealing work needs to be done on the flue, and where the water is getting
in around the door hinges. Tthe leak in the porch also needs attention.
The Huts floorboards may need replacing in the medium term, and the Hut could do with
repiling and levelling.
Provisions
on site
Provisions on site include two axes, a bowsaw, a grubber, a shovel, a plastic bucket, a plastic washbasin, two brooms,
a coal bucket, a hearth shovel and brush,
a stainless steel pot, an aluminium pot, a frypan, and a tin of small flat head nails.
