'Iconic' sign stolen from Hawke's Bay back-country hut

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When the word "missing" is used in the context of hunting and tramping in the Kawekas alarm bells ring across the scope of emergency services and all people regularly using them thar hills. But it's not the whereabouts of one of their own that's been the issue over the past few days, rather that there's no sign of a sign which had been nailed to the door of Manson Hut, a second home of two hunters who planted their stake many years ago with a red board on which they wrote: "Manson Hut III. Regd. office of Clark and Hart Ltd". "They were possibly sitting holed-up in a storm with nothing better to do," says Puketapu deer hunter Glenn Morris, aka the Backridge Butcher. Morris said all huts have their signs, but this one was "iconic". His Facebook post asking the question "Who flogged the Manson Hut sign?" has attracted thousands of views since going-up on Sunday after he came out from six days hunting in the area. As it happens, it's likely to have been missing more than a year, it's just that it hadn't been missed until last week. A user of the hut for more than 20 years, Morris had to go back through old photos and video before discovering it hadn't been there 12 months ago. "I felt something was missing," he says. "It seems strange that it's gone." By early afternoon on Tuesday there'd been no enlightenment, although there had been contact from one Department of Conservation officer who didn't think that it had been the work of these guardians of hither and beyond. It is DoC's job to ensure the maintenance of the hut, which was built in 1972 and upgraded in 2003 at an altitude of 1280 metres. With a helipad just 20 metres away, sheltered from strong westerlies but sometime subject to brief snowfalls in what DoC says is a wide range of climatic conditions, the hut is billed as a "comfortable" hunting and tramping stopover for those exploring the remote western reaches of the Kaweka Forest Park. Appreciating the importance of most back-country signs, Morris can't see why anyone would have taken it, and says: "Perhaps it's been taken for a man-cave, but it's got to be somewhere."