Overlanding Kiwi's Adventures

09/02/2023

12/10/2022

What a great place, it’s a must visit

06/10/2022

Had a great trip up the Macaulay river to the Macaulay hut, you can access this track off Lily Bank Road just on the end of Tekapo.
This track is 4x4 only and I would recommend you have a snorkel, however if the river was low you could do it without one. Not recommend though.
The track is self-starts along the side of Lily bank Station about 3km up you drop off onto the river bed, and there are a number of water crossing throughout the trip, there is also a number of tracks as the river is for ever changing, some 4x4 drivers have stacked rock pile to help make the way however again that can change, so the key is to just take you time. I have download the TOPO GSP app and have found this a great help as you can follow tracks as well as record your own.
The hut is amazing it’s a big credit to the Trust that manage it, the hut is very well set up, the fire put out a great heat as well as it has an oven built into it, you can also cook on top of it. There is also a 4 burner cook top there runs off gas bottle which is outside. There a number of pots, pans, and roasting dishes, it sleeps 14, however also has a good area outside to pitch tents.
This area weather can change really quickly and like we did all the checks around the weather and though we were all good however it change and we had to make a call on if we stayed and waited the weather front out or go. We had enough supplies to stay for 4 days, however made the call to go as we had mapped our trip in.
I would say if you do head in this area make sure you have good supplies just in case.

16/01/2022

Did a small trip away with my son Riley and our dog Boston which wasn’t the best idea I’ve had bring the dog however we had to live with that one,
We turned off highway 73 on to Mt white road, called into the Hawdon campsite, nice wee DOC shelter here as well as a massive camping area however no dogs….. we head up to Mt White Station passed the Andrew Valley DOC Shelter another good wee shelter, the road into Mt White is a good gravel road with some great views, we were hoping that we could get the ok to travel up the Esk River up passed Pukio Stream up to Lochinvar Hut, however when we meet the station they would let us as they are in the middle of mustering and they are also just finishing a big Accommodation building and are going to do tours up into the same area we want to go in Mid/late February.
So we head back down to highway 73 to Craigburn Road, which take you up to the old Avoca Homestead/huts, this road also takes you passed lake Sarah, Grasmere and Hawden, the road is gravel and crosses the railway track an number of time which means a number of gates to open and close much to my son discussed, we got 90% of the way up to find that DOC have blocked the road off to 4wd, so it’s a 2 hour return walk to the Homestead….. Couldn’t do due to dog. We took a side track over into Flock Station to check out Broken river hut, however again to find out via the station manager it’s been closed off due to the disrespect of some 4wd people. So we decided we would head down to Lake Pearson and try find a camp, again DOC site no dogs, so we found a side track that took us to a amazing wee stop on the lake side.
I found with doing this it’s not easy to get hold of the station manager/owner however when you do they haven’t had great experience with some people in 4wd, which is super sad as without the station opening there gates to people we will miss out on some amazing country, so the key thing is respect the area and the land .

31/12/2021

Did our first test trip away a few months back, weather wasn’t the best however we went out anyway we went around Bank peninsula, started at Birdlings flat,it was an interesting start I forgot to air down and at the end of the road at Birdling is big flat shingle, first go didnt go so well however managed to reverse out likely, went for low second and hit it hard and we got through. So amazing views to be had all the way round to lands end road.
Muddy gravel road most of the to lands end then sealed road out toward Barrys Bay. There weather stated to close in so headed over to Le Bons Bay and stopped there for lunch lovely wee bay, then went over to Lavricks Bay, this is a private road down to the bay so need to ask at the farm house at the bottom to go out the beach, went over to Okains Bay and stopped at the campground there for the night, great stop as they have showers,kitchen etc cost $25 for the night for me and two kids. Great walks and caves to look around too.
The next day we went to little Akaloa, nice area with a wee camp and walking tracks, Pigeon Bay, Port Levy, Purau Bay, this is a great trip that I want to do again the roads are good (gravel, Mud, Seal)some of the road around from little Akaloa to Port Levy and really narrow. The only hard part is at the start however if you dont have a 4WD you will have to can cut this part out.