Off Road South Island New Zealand.

[Dusty-NZ]

The Lake Daniels trip was always exciting .

It was technically demanding if you were trying not to damage your truck , and always different due to the river changing every flood , which might be weekly. :Wow1:

The track meandered up the Station creek and into and out of the Beech forest on both sides of the river. access was often washed away and new routes had to be created.

 

[Dusty-NZ]

At the end of the day , the camp out was ALWAYS worth the effort of getting there

Tucked in the trees , just on the edge of the (Thompsons) Flat.

Sometimes many hours were lost trying to get across the Flat. It was quite clay based and always wet..

And then , of course, there was the trip back out again :victory:

 

[Dusty-NZ]

The West Coast , South Island has plenty of native Beech forest , its very beautiful but loaded with mozzies, the further south you go , the bigger and more voracious they get . A good repellant is a must .

Otherwise you don't get to see the scenery , LOL .

 

[Dusty-NZ]

A change of location , here we do a trip up to Lake Godley. This is the lake that is formed at the foot of the Godley Glacier.

Access is up the north side of Lake Tekapo , across the MacAuley River and thru Lillybrook Station. It is pretty barren country , being in the snow area, but the station is farming deer quite suscessfully.

Crossing the MacAuley in the dry.

Tip toe up the Godley River

Smoko at some barely sheltered spot

This is the morane , pushed up by the (now melted) glacier, study the pic and find the landrover, big boulders there .

Some of us were energetic enough to walk up to the lake

As usual , the views were pretty cool

My dad climbed the peak in the distance in 1944, and I have a grainy little pic he took looking back down the valley across this exact spot.

 

[loren85022]

You, my friend have been living large! Bravo.

 

[sourdough]

great pictures, very vintage 70's & 80's feeling.

 

[roverrocks]

Superb pictures and adventure.

 

[Dusty-NZ]

Thanks for your nice comments , I'm glad you have found my fun interesting

Traveling up the Mathias River was often a bleak experience , It is well into the back country and close to the snow line , The hills are rock and when it rains the river floods REALLY fast , other times its just wet

And COLD, (minus 10C at 10am, it got better when the sun peaked thru ...

My truck (the FJ55) was pretty rough , I had taken the hood lining out to do some rust repair welding , the condensation formed from our breathing had frozen on the roof, when the sun finally (and briefly) came out , it was a mad scrabble to catch the melt before the bedding got wet .

Then it got bleak again .....
Pete breaking my pick on the frozen bank , trying to get an easier access down the slope.

 

[p1michaud]

Interesting tales and nice cruisers.

 

[Dusty-NZ]

Took a summer holiday at Medina Station , near the Conway River on the East Coast.

Pretty dry , fire ban area , mostly we just loafed in the sun, walked on the beach or hid in the valley where there was some small amound of bush for shelter.

The coast line is pretty stark , there were wild goats on the cliffs, the farmer would have been happy had we been able to shoot any of them.

I didn't do much driving on the farm , but the one interesting track I did find also found me !

Near new tyre it was too ...

 

[Dusty-NZ]

Moving on ...

Mt White Station is in the middle of the South Island , on the Arthurs Pass route.

Typical high country, snow in winter , roasted dry in summer. Very challenging to farm.

Not so difficult to drive as they have very good tracks , mostly the delight in being here is the fact that the general public are excluded.

We overnight at a musterers hut, pretty basic , just some bunks , a bench and a large fire place.

I forget now , how big the station is (about 40,000 hectares), but we were allowed to drive anywhere we liked

It was an interesting long weekend away , and if any of us were hunters , we could have eaten well.

We were too far from the hut the second night so we tented instead.

 

[Dusty-NZ]

Another fun weekend on the West Coast . Nelson Creek area.

The rain and mud were right up to expectations

And sections of the tracks were nicely washed out

One little (West Coast) rule I forgot about is "never go off the seal unless its a planned excursion"

I just needed to do a U turn ..............

Very embarrassing to be on the end of a rope ON THE ROAD

 

[Dusty-NZ]

Lunch stop at Lake Moana

or .......... sharing the oxygen with the sand flys !!

 

[Dusty-NZ]

Long weekend away to Ngaroma Station , inland from Kaikoura we were on the Spay river , that flows into the Conway River.

This was another private trip that allowed us to travel all over the station , the views were nice and the cool swimming hole was GREAT .

As always ........

 

[Dusty-NZ]

Back to the West Coast for some fun in the rain ...........

Noname road , Nelson Creek area, pretty at the start , deteriorated all day after that :0

My wet dog just LOVED this place, a rare shot of her standing still.

And of course stuff happened ................ :Wow1: