Field hut

Field hut was built by the Tararua tramping Club (TTC) in 1924. The hut is classed as an Historic building and was one of the first purpose built tramping huts in the country, and is the oldest surviving recreational hut in the Tararua Ranges This is a standard 20-bunk hut in the Kapiti region. Field hut is one of huts on the Southern Crossing, often used for a Friday night stop over on for trampers undertaking this classic tramp.

The TTC has a long history with huts on the Southern Crossing. All of the of the huts used up until the 1980s were built by the TTC. Includes Dobsons hut (now removed), Alpha hut #2, Kime hut #1, 2 and 3. And Field hut.

Click on the link below to read more about Field hut on the TTC website here..

The Southern Crossing

Click the link below to read more about the history of the TTC and the Southern Crossing https://www.ttc.org.nz/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/TararuaHistory/EstablishedIn1919

The Tararua tramping Club celebrated 80 years since building of the hut in 2004 . Click the link below to read more..https://www.ttc.org.nz/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/TTC/FieldHut80th

Joe Gibbs

Joe Gibbs was known to many trampers and hunters in the 1960s, when he resided in the huts in the Tauherenikau valley in the Tararua range after his retirement. He was a familiar sight to many trampers that tramped into the first huts in the valley on a Friday night.

Joe was born in 1879 near Murchison, and grew up with a love of the wild developed in the surrounding wilderness. A horseman and accurate shot, he served in the Boer War, and worked for a time in western North America. Returning to Aotearoa he worked on the Wellington wharves, and took up tramping. As well as building Field, he also enlarged the first Alpha hut, built Kime Hut, and also the first Tauherenikau Hut where he often stayed in retirement. And he cut the Marchant track, and the track from Cone to Totara Flats. He was a great bushman, and also a noted deerstalker. Joe died in 1969. (text TTC.org.nz)