News and media
Fernburn Hut opens this week
The new hut on the 28-kilometre Motatapu Track between Wanaka and Macetown opens Friday, December 12. The new Fernburn hut will break what was previously an eight-hour tramp from the Wanaka trailhead south to Highland Creek Hut. It also opens up a daywalk for those who simply want a pretty walk beside the Fernburn Stream and under a canopy of remnant beech forest.
The Motatapu Track was gifted to the nation by Eileen and Mutt Lange. During negotiation with the Overseas Investment Commission in 2004 for the purchase of two adjacent pastoral lease properties, the Langes offered to support Te Araroa. They paid for the track across their pastoral lease properties and for two huts en route as part of the New Zealand-long route.
The route proved tough, and DoC approached the Langes for a third hut to ease the through walk, and to act as the turnaround point for those wanting simply a daywalk in from Wanaka. The Langes' company, Soho Properties, agreed to pay $100,000 towards the cost of the new hut, and the Otago Conservancy of the Department of Conservation, which built and manages the track, has funded the remainder of the budget through to a total of $192,000. DoC's contractors were Fulton Hogan.
