‘Not like there's a Mitre 10 down the road': The mission to rebuild Kosciuszko's famous huts
For nearly 150 years, heritage huts in the high country of Kosciuszko National Park have saved lives and provided refuge to skiers, hikers and workers when the weather turned bad.
In January, hiker Hadi Nazari, 23, survived nearly two weeks in the mountains, helped by two muesli bars he reportedly found in one of the 60 mountain huts.
Now, 10 heritage huts destroyed by bushfires in 2019-20 have been rebuilt, with the completion of Round Mountain Hut last month. It was a community effort by NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) and the latest generation of families, like the Bradleys and the O'Briens, who built and used the huts, and the conservation group the Kosciuszko Huts Association.
NPWS project officer Megan Bowden said the huts, which date back to the 1870s, had saved many a life in the mountains. 'One minute it can be sunny, the next it can be a whiteout,' she said. 'People will ski and walk to these huts as a visitor destination, but they also provide a good shelter in bad weather.'
The huts were also like 'little living museums' of the area's history. Bowden said they represented the many different uses of the land, 'ranging from the early graziers to timber getters, prospectors and the construction of the Snowy Mountains Scheme, and then later those who built them for use for skiing and walking in the area'.
Each hut had been built in its own style and from local materials – and rebuilt in that style after the fires, some using timber milled from burnt trees that had fallen nearby.
'So there are river stone huts down at Geehi on the Murray Valley, the log cabins at Pretty Plains and Vickerys Hut, and the split slab hut of Cascade Hut and Oldfields,' she said.
After visiting Four Mile Hut, built in 1932, Environment and Heritage Minister Penny Sharpe said it was wonderful that the hut had been brought back to life just metres from its charred remains.
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