Page:Picturesque New Zealand, 1913.djvu/294

188 the huts and Glade House, tread as cautiously as if stalking game. At the huts are great quantities of tinned goods, and big appetites. The married couple in charge of each hut never know when a hungry walker will seat himself or herself on a bench before the long wooden table and call for canned soup, fish, beef, or sausage. As a famishing New Plymouth solicitor said to me, " It does not matter much what it is, so long as it is something." The huts are conducted by the Tourist Department from November 1 to April 30, the only part of the year when the track is free from snow. They are rough wooden buildings with galvanized iron roofs, and on the outside each has a large chimney of the lean-to kind so common in New Zealand's "back-blocks." In these way-places the dining-room also is the kitchen. Likewise it serves as a cheerful, informal social hall, where, before a wide fireplace hung with pots and kettles, the walkers talk of the day's happenings while, if a wet day, their damp clothing dries in the heat of four-foot logs. At these places meals and beds (bunks furnished with blankets) are paid for with coupons obtained at Glade House, the charge being fifty cents for either meals or beds. All tourist patrons must have a track ticket also, which costs eighty-four cents. Another convenience on Milford Track is a telephone service. The telephone line runs the whole length of the walk, but the service does not. For a brief time it was in operation between Glade House and the