SOLO Overnight Camp in a Hidden Mountain Hut!

Here's our little accommodation for the night. Hey everyone and welcome back to SeaWest Camping. I've just spent the night in an awesome little hut called Piggott's Hut on the North Island of New Zealand. We didn't have a lot of rain but we had some. I ate some delicious food and we're just hiking out now but it's been an awesome night. So if you enjoy camping in the rain and in backcountry huts stick around. It's going to be a good video. We've got a big slog up this hill about four kilometers until we reach the hut. So it's going to be pretty hard out but I'll check in with you on the way up. It's a bit of a hard slog get up. I've probably done, I've done about 10,000 steps maybe a kilometer, maybe a bit more. It's a pretty hard slog though. I'm definitely unfit for winter camps. Anyway we're going to carry on, get up onto the ridge and then we'll have another break. We should have a pretty good view up there but yeah it's pretty, pretty steep at the moment. It's a bit of bush to cut through here. We've got a nice stream. There's some of our water source but the hut's also got a tank as well. Here we are ladies and gents. There it is. It looks like we have the place to ourselves. Yes we made it. Here's our little accommodation for the night. Oh man it was good to have that on. I guess it's time for a little drink and then I'll show you around the hut. And we'll check out the surrounding area. All right and they built this pergola veranda which is just awesome for in the rain. But the hut's been here for a while. It's another source of water with all the rain we had so these are probably, probably full but I am going to boil it. So we've got a bit of a veranda, bench to have a gas cooker and everything. Got another tank and a sink over here. It's luxury for a hut. Check out the inside. Awesome. It's pretty basic. Smells like a, smells like an old shed. Open the window get some ventilation going because it is a bit smelly. And what have we got? These foam mattresses. They're pretty, pretty decent mattress. I won't need to inflate my e-bed and then we can have light there, camera. Pretty good. Nice little veranda in there. It's really nice. First thing I'm going to do is get my boots off because I've got a bit of a blister going on there. And our babies. I'm going to put our bears and my steak in the bush somewhere where it can stay colder for them. Steak over here. Bears can sit back down and try and cool them down a bit. Man, it's pretty boggy through here. It's been a lot of rain over the last couple of weeks. I imagine these tents are pretty, it's full to the top. I actually saw another YouTuber, Abel, using this milk. It's way better than the little carton version. So I've actually stolen his idea. So thank you Abel. Hello everyone. Welcome back to Seawest Camping. It's been a little while, about three or four weeks since my last video. I've just been really busy with work. Obviously I'm working as well. I'm not ready for full-time YouTube yet. But it's on the cards. But I haven't been doing too much. I have done a couple other camps which I'll get edited. But I wanted to get up here. We've got some bad weather approaching. I would say a few people have come through since I've been here. And they're making their way back. They're not staying. So we've got the place to ourselves. I've just made a quick cup of hot chocolate. It's a lovely little spot. Right at the end of the excess road. It's a service road for the dams, for the trap lines. There's a lot of traps up here. The temperature drop is crazy. It'll be 11 degrees tonight. So I brought my down jacket. And I can already feel a bit of rain. That's better. Now I've got a bit of a thermal top on. And as it gets colder, I can get my down jacket. And it's going to get some more energy into me. I've got a triple chocolate chunk cookie to get down. It's massive. I had one on my last camp. It's a giant, giant cookie. Delicious. Just need to be careful. That'll be enough. I've just got to remember to take them down in the morning. They're only cheap though. I think I got them from a tea mill or somewhere. But they're good little lights. And they last, well, at least a couple hours on, continuous. All right. That should be enough lighting for us while we cook dinner, at least. So I'm just going through the intentions book for this hut. There's another YouTuber that was here in November last year. I actually watched his video this week. Sort of prepped myself what to expect on the hike in. And, you know, what the hut's like. Rick from YouTube. His channel's Lifestyle and Tech NZ. He does a few different huts and tracks around the North Island of New Zealand. But yeah. Shout out to Rick from Lifestyle and Tech NZ. Go check out his channel. And you'll see his rendition of his trips here. He's done two videos here. It's going to be nice. Here goes the door. Hopefully he can still see me. This will be nice up here. I've got a couple of videos to watch I've saved from YouTube as well. So it should be pretty good. So if you remember not to get up in the morning and bash my head. I'm going to get this down jacket on. This is just a mack pack one, but it works really well. I took it to the snow last season. And with some thermals with it. It's really good. All right. I think I'm going to get dinner going while we wait for this rain. It's already just starting to get dark. I've been boiling. I've been boiling some water. And we'll let it cool down overnight. Some water on the walk out. It should be enough. And we'll get dinner started. All right. So for dinner. I'm going to be having some nice fresh sirloin steak. And I'm going to try out one of these real meals. This one is the bacon mash. So that should be pretty good. And you just add water. Shake it around. It's like a mashed potato with cheesy bacon in it. Better get our seasoning. Get some of that fat cooking. Get the water in this. Smells interesting. But I think it's going to be delicious. We'll find out in a second. Let the steak rest for. Perfection. It's pretty good. I've let the steak rest for about 10 minutes. Oh yeah. This is. It's really good. Didn't bring a plate. Which is a bit annoying. But that steak just came out so good. Perfect timing. It's delicious. Well done Real Meals. It's awesome. My plan is. Now that I'm back doing these camping videos. I really want to get down. Central North Island. And the South Island of New Zealand. And get some snow camps in. I'll probably start off pretty easy with a North Island one. Up through the beech forest. Out into the tussock or something. See what I can find. There's plenty of opportunities. But I'm slowly investing in the right gear. I just got a minus 19 minus 20 bag. And I've already got a minus 11 bag. So that should really cover me. I'm not going super high altitudes. That was delicious Real Meals. Definitely be trying more. They've got some nachos. They've got beef stroganoff. They've got a whole lot. Breakfast ones. I'll definitely try them out over the next wee while. That's dinner done and out the way. We've still got no rain. I don't know what's going on there. It's been some delays or something. Now it was meant to hit around four o'clock. And we're now. It must be close to six. 5.40. Oh yeah. I better hurry up. I want some before it gets dark. Right. It is. Beer time. Very windy. I think I'm going to have a really good sleep tonight in there. I've got. I've got a couple videos. I've got Kathy from Adventure OT's latest video. And I've got Abel in Victoria. I've got his latest video. Which was posted this morning before I left. So I quickly saved them on my YouTube app. And I'll probably watch Abel's one tonight. And I think I'm going to have a good sleep. I might make another hot chocolate after these beers. See what this rain does if it decides to show up. See it's much warmer in here. It's very echoey with the microphone. Apologies for that. I've got some treats for bedtime. Right. I was talking to Tony from AB Camping. He's just bought that V8 diesel. Troopy. Toyota. Probably going to cost $300, $400 to fill. And no doubt it'll have a large fuel capacity. Yeah. Right. I'm going to lay down and bed. I'll be up for a while. Wait for this rain to come if it does. We'll pop out and get some footage of the rain. It's going to be very loud on this if it does come. But if not we'll see first thing in the morning. Cook some bricky up and be hiking on out of here. Morning everyone. Morning. It's a wild night. Very wet and windy. Heaps of thunder. Ground's pretty wet out here. We've got some light rain at the moment. Had a pretty good sleep. My first time sleeping in a hut like that. It was actually pretty good. I'm going to get the billy going and have a nice warm hot chocolate while we listen to the rain. Make it nice and chocolatey. It looks like our brew. Got a nice light gentle shower over us right now. Start the day with a hot brew. Plan for this morning. I'm going to aim to leave around 8.30. That'll enable me to get back to the car by 10.30. It's about an hour and a half going out. Mostly downhill. So we'll have a we'll have a pack down soon and clean out the hut. Fill out our intentions and then we'll cut a track as they say. I think we'll be walking out in our wet weathers. We can have a bit of a sweep and a clean up. Make a plan. There you go. Okay, I've packed my bag. About to chuck that on and shut this hut up. One more glass check. I'm going to leave those two windows open just to keep some ventilation because it is a bit smelly in here when it's closed up. All right, goodbye little hut. You've kept me warm and dry for the night. Done my intentions so anyone who visits the hut see if you can find my comment there and you can watch the video. Stunning views from halfway up the track. About a kilometre so far. Some beautiful views up there of the dam in the forest with the fog coming over them which is just starting to lift. So this is the spillway for the dam. I'll have to put on screen how much water this holds. I think it's in the tens of billions of litres and then it runs out the spillway into the river so there'll be a pump house here which will collect the water and filter it and distribute it across parts of Auckland and the North Island of New Zealand. Right, we did it folks. Back at the car. Hopefully you can see me. There's a bit of sun strike. Back in the car. Hey everyone. Sorry for the impromptu flashback. My video, the audio on my outro actually cut out on my drive out but I just wanted to say thank you for watching the video. Hope you enjoyed it. I'm just editing the final bits now and then I'll be posting it up. I hope you enjoyed it. If you did, give it a thumbs up. Hit the subscribe button. I'm going to try to get out and do a camp every week if I can. That's the plan anyway but I've just got a new tent from a company which is a hot tent. I've got the stove. I've been testing that out which I'll show you here. So next video will be up not long after this one which will be a hot tent camp in winter in New Zealand. So I hope you enjoyed this one and stick around plenty more to come. Thanks everyone.