CLAIMING THE DATE:
SUNDAY 12TH APRIL 2009 (EASTER SUNDAY)
AT DAVEYS HUT ON SNOWY PLAIN
Kosciuszko National Park
DEC formerly NP&WS & KHA caretakers of Daveys Hut
extend an invitation
YOU ARE INVITED!
BRING A PLATE for an old fashioned country morning tea
BYO LUNCH
KHA
Christmas Party
Saturday
6th Dec
Join other KHA members for a lunchtime Christmas barbeque at
the historic Gudgenby Homestead 'Readycut' cottage continuing
with drinks and nibbles in the afternoon and an overnight stay
for those inclined.
A Saturady afternoon walk to Hospital Creek Hut is proposed.
Following completion
of the new Delaney's and Patons huts, KHA's Huts and History Sub-committee
is working on updating the history associated with huts scheduled
for rebuilding. To listen to extracts of interviews with the builders
of Brooks hut click on the link below. The two attached sound
files are
Enjoy! If
you like this material please tell us and we will build a whole
lot more - thanks to Graham Scully and team!
The KHA Publicity Officer is Peter McGaghey
who can be contacted via email at publicity@kosciuskohuts.org.au
NOTE
ON EPIRB's - Emergency Positioning Radio
Indicator Beacons, sometimes known as PLB's (Personal Locator
Beacons) - the 121MHz system will be closed on 1 February 2009.
Please replace your EPIRB with a 406MHz Device, available now!
Over 500 members of the Kosciuszko
Huts Association work within the Kosciuszko, Namadgi and Brindabella
National Parks to retain, restore and re-build the mountain huts
and homesteads, that form a key part of Australia's cultural heritage.
The Kosciuszko Huts Association was formed in 1971 and on
May 26, 2001 celebrated its 30th anniversary at Sawpit Creek in
Kosciuszko National Park. The first meeting was held there in 1970
by a group of concerned people, bushwalkers and skiers. Their greatest
fear was the deliberate destruction of the vernacular huts and homesteads
that lay within the Park Boundary. These structures were built by
our pioneer graziers and gold miners, and suited their basic needs.
Many of these buildings were aged and desperately needing conservation.
In the hard years, our committees and members struggled to hold
onto the High Country huts, in an age before Government or Australians
benefited from recognising and appreciating their history, albeit
a short space of civilised history compared to the rest of the world.
Now we share a partnership with National Parks and Wildlife Service
that respect the huts and their heritage value.
Today, we recognise Australia's heritage in many ways from grooves
in sandstone shelf near a watercourse to stockman's huts. The huts
we help to conserve and caretake are a polygon of styles suited
to the needs of pioneers, of grazing and goldmining. Basic structures
mostly, but each one as any caretaker knows, imbued with the character
of the scavenging capabilities or leanness of wallet of the builder.
There are huts still standing that seem to defy gravity. Over the
passing years since grazing ceased, there are many which have succumbed;
a pile of weathered timbers and corrugated iron. In some places
is just a pile of stones, the remains of a crude chimney.
The remaining 100 huts have become a haven for safety from blizzards,
a social centrepiece and a full dimension of history, a heritage
of how people lived in the first half of the 1900s. They are not
relocated to a "village" or reconstructed, they are maintained as
close as possible to the original fabric, structure and method of
construction as the owners built them.
Destructive fires in January and February 2003 destroyed more than
20 of the huts remaining at that time.
2003 Fires -
A list of burnt huts is shown
here. Also see the VHCHA
website for details of those lost in Victoria.
