All members are invited
to the KHA Annual General Meeting for 2008, to be held at Boali
Lodge, Mowamba Place Thredbo, on Satuerday 17 May 2008 at 2pm. Full
details and the AGENDA are here.
Accommodation and Dinner
Arrangements Boali Lodge is in Mowamba Place Thredbo, quite close
to the chairlifts. Their website is www.boali.com.au phone (02)
6457 6064, guest phone contact number (02) 6457 6089. The Lodge
is offering the following options only:
1. Full package which
includes a light lunch between 12.30pm and 1.30pm Saturday, Dinner,
twin or double room Saturday night and full breakfast Sunday at
a cost of $105 per person.
A 3 course dinner
Saturday night at a cost of $45 per person. This year members are
required to book their own accommodation at the Lodge which has
accommodation for 28 people in Twin or Double rooms - payment required
by credit card or cheque at time of booking for both options. Please
phone the Lodge to book or complete the Boali Lodge booking form
included in the newsletter and post or fax.
For more details contact
GrahamScully Ph 02-62303352 or scullymobs@netspeed.com.au or Pip
Brown ph 02-2195093 or pip.brown@legalaid.nsw.gov.au .
The
KHA Publicity Officer is Peter McGaghey who can be contacted on
02-6291 9676 or via email to publicity@kosciuskohuts.org.au
NOTE
ON EPIRB's - Emergency Positioning Radio Indicator Beacons,
sometimes known as PLB's (Personal Locator Beacons) - the 121MHz
system will be closed on 1 February 2009. Please replace your EPIRB
with a 406MHz Device, available now!
Over 500 members of the Kosciusko
Huts Association work within the Kosciuszko, Namadgi and Brindabella
National Parks to retain, restore and re-build the mountain huts and
homesteads, that form a key part of Australia's cultural heritage.
The Kosciusko Huts Association was formed in 1971 and on May
26, 2001 celebrated its 30th anniversary at Sawpit Creek in Kosciusko
National Park. The first meeting was held there in 1970 by a group
of concerned people, bushwalkers and skiers. Their greatest fear was
the deliberate destruction of the vernacular huts and homesteads that
lay within the Park Boundary. These structures were built by our pioneer
graziers and gold miners, and suited their basic needs. Many of these
buildings were aged and desperately needing conservation.
In the hard years, our committees and members struggled to hold onto
the High Country huts, in an age before Government or Australians
benefited from recognising and appreciating their history, albeit
a short space of civilised history compared to the rest of the world.
Now we share a partnership with National Parks and Wildlife Service
that respect the huts and their heritage value.
Today, we recognise Australia's heritage in many ways from grooves
in sandstone shelf near a watercourse to stockman's huts. The huts
we help to conserve and caretake are a polygon of styles suited to
the needs of pioneers, of grazing and goldmining. Basic structures
mostly, but each one as any caretaker knows, imbued with the character
of the scavenging capabilities or leanness of wallet of the builder.
There are huts still standing that seem to defy gravity. Over the
passing years since grazing ceased, there are many which have succumbed;
a pile of weathered timbers and corrugated iron. In some places is
just a pile of stones, the remains of a crude chimney.
The remaining 100 huts have become a haven for safety from blizzards,
a social centrepiece and a full dimension of history, a heritage of
how people lived in the first half of the 1900s. They are not relocated
to a "village" or reconstructed, they are maintained as
close as possible to the original fabric, structure and method of
construction as the owners built them.
Destructive fires in January and February 2003 destroyed more than
20 of the huts remaining at that time.
2003
Fires - A list
of burnt huts is shown here.
Also see the VHCHA website
for details of those lost in Victoria.
