Thread: Golden Hills Hut Restoration

Thanks 7.62 , Lester Masters wrote a introduction into the Golden Hills Hut Visitors Book and included what you wrote about in your post , it started with a poem

Golden Hills Hut

We "ll take the old route o"er the range
By windy ridge and spur ,
And come again to Golden Hills ,
And golden days that were .

While restoring one of the 2 Hut windows i noticed names and date written on the inside of the sash , the names where the original hut builders you have mentioned and have been left intact .

Over the past 4 years while undertaking the Restoration i have met and talked to numerous men that once worked as Musterers on Ngamatea Station , i met Dave Withers who first went to Ngamatea as a 18 year old and his first Muster was the 1959 - 1960 season , Dave recalls he was given a Braun camera by his grandmother and carried it with him every day and has a wonderfull photograph record of his 6 years at Ngamatea , Dave is currently in the process of publishing a book of his time at Ngamatea .

The photo collections of Don Hammond and Ray Birdsall are outstanding as are the many stories and folk lore that surround Ngamatea .

If i may i will tell a story as told to me by Tim Birdsall , Rays son

Ray and 2 Musterers where Mustering when they where caught out in blizard conditions , due to snow building up on there horses hooves making it to dangerous to continue on horse back , being 5 hours from Golden Hills Hut where they knew was shelter , food and dry firewood the decision was made to abandon there horses and continue on foot in appalling conditions , they knew darkness would overcome them before they reached Golden Hills , there long oil skin coats and south wester hats kept them dry as possible , the thoughts of hot food and drying out in front of the open fire .

On reaching Golden Hills Hut well after dark they where shocked to find there food supply had been eaten and all the dry fire wood burnt , with no blankets and unable to start a fire it was a long cold night , the following morning they walked the 6 hours back to the Station , a few days later the Musterers where back at Golden Hills , they made 2 large earth mounds , placed a cross on each with the words " Here lies the barstards that ate our food and burnt our fire wood "

The crosses lasted many years and the mounds are still visible today