Excessive Expectations?

We are cycling the Munda Biddi Trail in Western Australia, from Perth to Albany. We thought it would be good to use our Georgia cycling fitness for another trip and the Munda Biddi had been on our radar. The trail is impressive so far (we only started three days ago), with lots of single track and off-road cycling.

What’s also impressive are the huts. There’s a series of huts along the trail. They’re free, which is sort of good and sort of not – people tend to value what they pay for. However, it makes the trip accessible to more people. What is fantastic about the huts is their simplicity. It makes me think that the New Zealand Department of Conservation has gone over the top with NZ huts. We seem to be continuously a raising people’s expectations of what back country huts offer. And, unfortunately, raising expectations often doesn’t end up with people being satisfied with what they have, it’s a route to people thinking that yet more is possible and wanting that more.

The Munda Biddi huts are open structures with big roofs clad with iron. The roof covers larges areas with benches to sit on and tables with benches to cook and eat at. The sleeping area has wooden surfaces, two tiers on each side, with an open walkway through the middle. There’s a single pit toilet and two large rainwater tanks at the huts we have seen so far.

The Munda Biddi huts look very easy and cheap to maintain – they have wood and iron, that’s it. Nothing to clean, no mattresses to get damaged, no windows that might need closing to stop keas coming in, or opening to stop people being suffocated by gas cookers, or replacing. There are no taps and sinks with plumbing to get blocked, just a tap on each water tank to run water into your containers.

Why has DoC gone the way they have chosen with huts getting ever fancier? Huts now need double glazing, insulation, sinks with taps, wastewater and septic systems. On Great Walks the toilets flush, there are LED lights powered by solar panels and gas cookers. All of this is expensive to build and to maintain. It’s well known that the fees DoC charges don’t cover the costs – taxpayers subsidise people to stay in the Great Walk huts, and all DoC huts. This might be okay when it’s New Zealanders we are subsidising, but why would we want to subsidise people from offshore to stay in our hut network?

I can hear people saying that New Zealand has bugs and is colder than Australia – we need better huts. Maybe … Australia has bugs too. People sleep in mosquito nets or tent inners in the open huts. New Zealand is colder … so people can bring appropriate clothing to stay warm in the huts. After all, trampers have to carry warm clothing to hike on the trails.

Maybe it’s time for a rethink of DoC huts – a rethink that considers what people will pay to stay on a track and how to construct huts that fit that budget. A rethink that considers whether we should be providing the same living experience when people are hiking as when they are in town. Isn’t going into the outdoors about having a different experience? An experience that makes your ‘normal’ life seems better? If you want a motel, there are plenty to stay in around the country. New Zealand is struggling to pay for upkeep of our infrastructure of every type – we are going to have to cut our cloth to fit sometime and there’s no better time to balance one’s budget than now.

As a final note, it's wildflower season in Western Australia. I don't know a lot about the plants here but there are lots of great colours.