Radio New Zealand - Te Reo Irirangi o Aotearoa

Spooky goings-on at 100-year-old hut

Updated at 7:33 am on 28 March 2009

Mountain guides have reported spooky goings-on at a 100-year-old hut in the South Island's Aoraki-Mount Cook National Park.

They say they have been visited by the ghost of a former guide who is believed to have built the Hooker Hut in 1910.

The Department of Conservation guides and a helicopter pilot have reported strange bumps in the night in the hut on the Hooker Glacier. Residents of Mt Cook Village have also been reporting paranormal activity.

Department mountain guide Jane Morris says she was staying in the two-room hut a week ago with a colleague when the pair heard the noise of someone arriving.

Ms Morris says she heard a billy lid and pot getting rattled around, as well as the bolt on the door being nudged and shuffling in the room.

She says she has spent a number of nights in huts over the years, but these sounds were "unusual" and could not have been made by an animal.

When the pair checked the room, no one else was there.

Ms Morris says she believes the sounds were made by the ghost of mountain guide Darby Thompson, who built the first Hooker Hut in 1910.

She says she would go back to the hut. "It's just quite intriguing, I guess."

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