Paul Ernest Gay, the Invercargill educator whose decades of work built the Deep Cove hostel in Doubtful Sound into a rite of passage for Southland schoolchildren, has died aged 92.

His family's notice in The Southland Times records that he died on 22 October 2026. A service was held at Hope Chapel in Hornby, Christchurch, on Thursday 29 October, followed by a private cremation.

Mr Gay was convener and chairman of the Deep Cove Hostel committee, and chairman of the Deep Cove Outdoor Education Trust, from 1971 until 2014, a span of 43 years. The trust later made him an honorary trustee for life.

His service was recognised in the 2019 New Year Honours, when he was awarded a Queen's Service Medal recognising his work in outdoor education. At the time, the Otago Daily Times reported that the Deep Cove complex, with its marine laboratory and accommodation, had welcomed some 120,000 pupils, parents and teachers, and credited him with putting the trust on a sound financial footing and lifting its use by schools across Southland.

Fiordland, he told the paper then, was part of the children's world and something they "should get to know".

Deep Cove, or Taipaririki, sits at the head of Doubtful Sound in Fiordland National Park. There is no road in: school parties cross Lake Manapouri by boat and then travel by coach over Wilmot Pass. The original building went up in 1968 to house workers digging the first Manapouri power station tailrace tunnel, and was turned into a hostel in 1971. After a fundraising drive a new complex opened in 1980 and the trust was formed to run it.

Today about 2,500 children a year, most of them aged 10 to 13 and drawn from Southland and Otago, spend three or four nights at the camp, with roughly 1,000 other visitors booking in. The hostel sleeps about 80. Students walk the bush tracks, fish from the wharf, look for glowworms at night and listen for kiwi, and the Les Hutchins Conservation Trust pays for nature guides to work with each class.

The trust keeps charges low so every child can afford to go, and depends on volunteers, including Invercargill Rotary and the Pakeke Lions, for maintenance. Community Trust South has helped fund a major refurbishment addressing the 40-year-old building's foundations, roof, insulation and accessibility.

Tributes left with the family notice recall Mr Gay's earlier career as a science adviser to the Southland Education Board, and later his time on the School Support Team, as well as his long association with the hostel.

He is survived by his wife Dawn, children Matthew, Jeannette and Blair, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.