Hende’s Hut and Gallery

Hende’s Hut and Gallery is a historic shelter and a cliffside walkway on Roberts Point Track in the Franz Josef Glacier valley. The hut is about an hour into the walk, after ice-smoothed rock outcrops; the gallery follows it. This is a distinctive heritage stop if you’re doing the hike, not a quick roadside visit.

The full Roberts Point route is 12.3 km return, takes about 5 hours 20 minutes, and is graded advanced. Several side streams are unbridged, and the rock slabs can be slippery when wet or icy, so choose a fine, dry day and turn back if the water is unsafe. The hut offers a sheltered lunch spot, but it isn’t overnight accommodation. The glacier lookout is farther on at Roberts Point; the track ends at a lookout, not on the glacier.

The gallery runs for about 60 metres along a sheer rock wall. Its timber steps rest on iron bars fixed into the rock, with wire handrails suspended above. It was built as a close glacier-viewing point, though regrowth now obscures much of the structure when seen from across the valley. When you reach it, look along the steps and ironwork for the clearest sense of how the walkway clings to the wall.

Peter Hende built the hut as a smithy and forged the iron standards that support the gallery. Completed in 1907, the walkway was built by men suspended on ropes or cages as they drilled into the rock. A glacier advance swept away the lower section just two years later; the surviving upper section now stands hundreds of metres from the receded ice. The gallery was restored in 1996, and the hut later served as a shelter for walkers.