This is Horse Camp Hut, one of many huts that are spread through the Australian high country. Most were built by cattlemen, although some were built as shelters during construction of the Snowy Mountains Scheme. The cattlemen (they are always referred to in the masculine although there were women around too) had leases entitling them to graze cattle in summer. In winter this area is snow covered. Horse Camp is a SMA hut.
The cattle did a lot of damage. They were banned in NSW a while ago, but some still graze in Victoria's high country.
The huts are very basic. They are mostly open to the public as shelters, but they are hotbeds of intestinal instability because they concentrate people.
Horse Camp was the first alpine hut I slept in, about 35 years ago.
yewenyi, a place imagined, Kate Banazi, and JiBryant added this photo to their favorites.
yewenyi 86 months ago | reply
A great inmage and story. It is a nice place in the summer and so different in the winter.
addon [deleted] 86 months ago | reply
great shot ian. a bit of nostalgia, eh? i used to walk in the hills in scotland and there were occasionally huts like this we could use. but they were made of stone.
adam
iansand 86 months ago | reply
Thanks Adam. I think the predilection for building in corrugated iron instead of stone says something about Australia.
There are (or were) a couple of stone huts. Doctors Hut and Keebles Hut at Geehi are stone. There was another hut at the bottom of Lady Northcotes Creek in the Geehi Gorge called Opera House Hut. It was so called because the SMA engineers who built it calculated that, on a per square metre basis, it was more expensive to build than the Sydney Opera House.
It was a lovely hut. Not only did it have a slow combustion stove to keep it warm - it had a woodpile as well.
I once spent an hour or so watching a wombat wombatting around at Opera House Hut. The place is so isolated that, as far as the wombat was concerned, I was probably a tree with particularly skinny trunks.
Opera House Hut burned in the fires too. So much is no longer there.
Java Cafe 86 months ago | reply
Nice photo, and *very* interesting text.
freef0cus 82 months ago | reply
Nice photo!....I am starting up a Group called Hut Lovers for those who have an interest in High Country and other Historic Huts in Australia....just working out how to get it up and running
Musgrove and Yogi 30 months ago | reply
Wild and remote. Great photo.
Tuba a la mode 6 days ago | reply
"hotbeds of intestinal instability"? That's a very polite way of putting it!