In the upper reaches of Wurragarra Creek, close to its source on the southern end of the February Plains, is a very special patch of forest.  Only a couple of hectares in area, it is comprised principally of pencil pine and myrtle with some trees many hundreds of years old. It owes its age to its location in the lee of a low rocky ridge that has acted as a shield in deflecting fires that periodically burn the valley. It is the only such forest in the upper Wurragarra. The forest is also special because it contains the remains of three or four huts of different generations all within a hundred metres of each other. Why are the huts there and what are their stories?

Subalpine areas offer the limited palette of stone and timber from which to build huts. Eucalypts, the dominant species at such altitudes, produce small twisty stems that are difficult to split. The native pines, on the other hand, split much more readily into the slabs, palings and shingles needed for hut construction. Of the pines, King Billy pine is the most favoured but is rarely found in the Upper Mersey. Pencil pine, also rare in the Mersey, tends to warp and twist when split but is a nonetheless a valued source of building timbers. The fact that the Wurragarra rainforest copse contains pencil pine, and is the only such source for a considerable distance, is the reason why it has attracted hut builders in the past.

Who would want to build a hut in such a place? Hunters. The first known hut, built on the edge of the forest, was erected around World War One as hunters combed the Upper Mersey seeking to secure a winter hunting run for themselves. The identity of the builder is unknown but may have been George Bott who, in an interview with historian Tim Jetson in the 1980s, said that he had hunted in the Wurragarra in 1914.  According to Bott, Len Bonney, George Clark, Harry Glover and Edgar Horton also hunted there. 

A decade later when Percy Bellchambers hunted with Len Bonney and brothers Basil and Cliff Scott in the Upper Arm/Mount Pillinger area (Mountain Stories, 01 April, 2014), Harry Glover and Henry Atkinson had taken over the hut. The occupants changed again in the 1930s when, according to Basil Steers, Len Bonney and George Clarke hunted from it.

Steers started hunting in 1942 with his father Bill. Up to that point, brothers-in-law Bill Steers and Tom McCoy had been hunting together and using the Wurragarra hut as well as the Kings Plains hut on the northern end of the February Plains. The relationship between Steers and McCoy ended when Bill brought son Basil into the team. McCoy went elsewhere and the Steers took control of both huts. Later in the 1940s they formalized this control by acquiring the two grazing leases that covered the February Plains.

The Steers used the Wurragarra hut until 1951. Basil walked over from Kings Plain at the beginning of a hunting season to find that the hut has collapsed under a big fall of snow. All that remained was the gable, still intact, sitting on a jumble of timbers. Displaying some wonderful improvisation, Basil found four small pencil pines inside the edge of the adjoining forest standing roughly in the shape of a rectangle two to three metres apart. He cut them a couple of metres off the ground effectively turning them into corner posts. He then carried the gable over and fixed it to these posts. Over the next day or so he salvaged other timbers from the collapsed hut and used them to clad his new hut.

The Steers used this second hut as a snaring hut until around 1954 when they stopped hunting. It was effectively abandoned until around the 1960s when bushwalkers found it and began using it.  It survived until the late 1970s when a fire lit by a careless bushwalker ignited the hut and burnt it to the ground. Thankfully that fire did not burn the forest.

The third hut was built in 1985 as a political protest. In 1984 the Government banned snaring as a hunting technique. The move shattered Basil Steers who had returned to hunting in the early 1970s when skin prices had improved. He determined that he was going to ignore the ruling and decided to build himself a snaring hut in a secret place where he could still hunt if he so chose. That secret place, where he thought no one would find it, was the Wurragarra rainforest copse. In the end it was enough to simply build the hut. It is unlikely Basil ever used it for its intended purpose. Very few people knew of the hut’s existence for many years until, perhaps inevitably, anglers found it. They modified it for recreational use and it still stands today, known as the Smurf Hut perhaps because of its small size. Basil’s connection to Wurragarra area was recognised following his death by naming the lake near the copse after him.

Are there other unknown huts in or around the rainforest copse? Possibly. Within the forest there is at least one moss covered structure that might once have been a hut. 

Old Pelion Hut renovations

Last year (Latest News, 9 August) I flagged that the Parks and Wildlife Service had agreed to renovate Old Pelion Hut in time for the centenary of its construction in 2017.

A work program was developed with remedial conservation works to stabilize and repair the fabric of the building scheduled for this summer. That work is well progressed. A working bee held on 9-12 April 2015 attended by Ian Hayes and Roger Nutting of the Mountain Huts Preservation Society and Parks and Wildlife Service staff did some fantastic work.

Earlier investigations had revealed that the stumps on which the building sat had rotted away. During this working bee, all the timber stumps were replaced with new King Billy pine stumps and the floor underpinned by rocks and river stones. In addition, the bottom plates of the southern wall, part of the western wall and the eastern side of the chimney were replaced with new King Billy bottom plates. Some floorboards were also replaced with new King Billy boards.

I commend the quality of the work that has been done and the great care that has been displayed in maintaining the historical integrity of this important building during this work. I look forward to seeing further elements of the restoration such as the chimney and quality interpretation, come together.