Our Tramp to Aspiring Hut

Over the years, the users of the hut have changed from mountaineers, adventurers and trampers to more family groups, novice trampers, mountain bikers, and day trippers. It is an achievable objective for inexperienced groups, especially young children, in a beautiful and wild valley. The current large communal bunk rooms are not best suited to this type of user so we are proposing to change the layout to several smaller bunkrooms to aid family groups. A booking system was also introduced 3 years ago and is very popular with family groups. We now have reports of local families and groups of children heading to Aspiring Hut for birthday party weekends. We believe that the upgrades and layout changes will encourage even more locals and family groups to venture up to Aspiring Hut and ignite a new passion for tramping in NZ alpine environments. Continue the Aspiring Hut legacy donate here.

Young adventurer, Florence shares her story of their family trip to Aspiring Hut:

In July 2021 my family and friends went on an extraordinary adventure to Aspiring Hut. There were two mums, two dads, two 8-year-olds and 2 six-year-olds. We had all tramped to Peach Cove hut before, but Peach Cove was a lot smaller! It was not even a quarter of the size of the Aspiring hut! 

I felt excited but a bit nervous because it was a four-hour walk. It was cold but the scenery was amazing. Gilan had the map and Alfie had the compass (we had to make sure we were going the right way!) We saw heaps of mountains and lots of trees and we had to cross lots of little streams. I remember there were about five swing bridges. It felt weird going over them because they swung a lot. 

The adults thought that we should each carry some wood because we weren’t sure how much firewood there would be at the hut. I named mine Louis the Log! Louis felt quite heavy by halfway through and it was really annoying because my back was starting to hurt!

It was getting dark and soggy underfoot when suddenly my Dad called from ahead to say that he could see the hut!  I couldn’t see it at first but as we got a bit closer I saw the chimney poking out behind the trees and we were all very excited to get there! The kids and I started running but then we realized it was still quite far away and we didn’t want to run all that way! 

Guess what, there was tonnes of firewood piled up outside the hut so we could have left our firewood behind on the track. The hut was really cold inside. But when my dad and Ed started the fire, I instantly felt warmer. We were the only people there so the adults pulled the mattresses into the main room where the fireplace was, so we could keep warm. By the way, we put Louis the Log in the fire. I was one of the closest people to the fire and it was really warm. We also played a game called Exploding Kittens. After that, the adults cooked some dinner. For dessert, we had apple pie and it was delicious! 

As I drifted off to sleep I thought I was so lucky to come on such a cool adventure with my family and my best friends to such a beautiful and special place. 

Luckily we had collected some water before bed because in the morning the water in the tap had frozen! I wrote a funny note about Louis the Log. It went like this:

Dear Louis, I am so sorry that we put you in the fire but you were the closest and you probably deserved it because you were really heavy. Also, Ed’s to blame. And please don't come back to haunt me. If you do, haunt Ed not me. From Florence. 

Before we left in the morning the kids and I got lots of firewood from the woodshed and brought it inside for the next people to visit the hut to use.

The ground was so crispy and crunchy when we left and it was freezing cold.

I am nine now, and I think I will remember this walk forever. We have done other overnight tramps with other families now too. We have encouraged them because we had such a great time at Aspiring Hut. Aspiring was a great one for us to do because it was lots of fun and we loved the nature there. The hike was challenging, but not too hard. Because it was a four-hour one, we can do longer walks now.  

By Florence

Continue the Aspiring hut legacy donate here.