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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
World
Samantha Mythen in Christchurch

‘Leave things better than you find them’: the volunteer army cleaning New Zealand’s remote hiking huts

Sonja Risa scrubs mattresses clean at a basic two-bunk hut near Hokitika, New Zealand
Sonja Risa scrubs mattresses clean at a basic two-bunk hut near Hokitika, New Zealand. Photograph: Liz Wightwick

From two-person shelters to a 54-bunk fortress, New Zealand’s countryside is scattered with huts that offer weary hikers a safe place to rest. Some huts sit along the popular Milford and Routeburn tracks, others are perched in remote valleys in the wilderness, with views ranging from snowy peaks to flourishing bush.

But the publicly owned network is too vast for the government to maintain, so ordinary people in New Zealand are filling their backpacks with cleaning supplies and hiking into the hills to clean and maintain the huts.

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