⛰️#13 - DOC Paid Parking Trial, Stranded On The Greenstone, Trowel Chat, Dodgy Ridges, & More.

And we are back with the 13th NZ Hiking Newsletter, sent every Thursday.

I'll let you know what’s going on in the hiking scene in New Zealand, along with other related bits and pieces I find interesting.

Alright, let’s get into it.

Table of Contents

• 🚘 DOC To Trial Paid Parking Systems In 3 Location …

• 🥾 Carnage For The Greenstone - Caples Track

• 😹 Hiking Funny

• 🗒️ Other Track News Etc.

• 🎁 A Couple Of Competitions To Enter

• 🧔‍♂️ What I've Been Up To...

🚘 DOC To Trial Paid Parking Systems In 3 Locations

If you’re heading to Punakaiki’s Pancake Rocks, Franz Josef, or White Horse Hill next summer (2025/26), be prepared to potentially pay for parking. DOC has announced they’ll be trialing a paid parking system at these three locations thanks to nearly $4 million in funding via the International Visitor Conservation and Tourism Levy (IVL).

This is certainly going to piss off some, but with the theory of paid parking helping to reduce pressure on some of these super crazy busy carparks/tourist sites (there’s only so big you can make a car park), and generating more revenue for DOC you can’t really argue against them giving it a whirl.

The planning phase is currently in progress, so there’s no word yet on how it’ll all work or what the pricing will be. They’ve said they’ll be going over all the potential concerns with partners and stakeholders. Here’s hoping DOC welcome feedback from the public, and get it right the first time.

Surely they can spend a few thousand dollars of the nearly four million on getting people from National Parks overseas that have introduced paid parking to come over and share their tips and tricks.

That could lead to the opportunity of Sister Park relationships (like Sister Cities). For example, Glacier National Park has Sister Park relationships with National Parks in Mongolia and Ireland.

Source: https://www.doc.govt.nz/news/media-releases/2024-media-releases/doc-to-trial-paid-parking-at-high-use-sites/

🥾 Carnage For The Greenstone - Caples Track

The Greenstone Caples Loop is considered a good alternative to the Routeburn Track, but for the last six days the roles have reversed thanks to a weird sequence of events.

The Routeburn Great Walk season was postponed for a couple of weeks due to conditions on the track, only opening tomorrow (the 15th). That meant, those who were stuck in Kinloch and/or Greenstone Car Park since the 9th could consider staying at the Routeburn Huts for a few days without needing to make a booking, before returning to their cars.

But why would they do that?

Kinloch Road, the only access to the Greenstone Caples Track on the northern end gave way and became unpassable on November 9th. So people were suddenly stuck with no way to get out via Kinloch Road.

Want to see what happened to the car in the photo above? Here’s the video.

Once the road gave way, Dart River jets were able to help ferry passengers for a couple of days to get out as it was considered an emergency. That meant some passengers likely left their rental cars out there with no time to get the cars out before departing the country. That sound like a lot of admin.

Once the emergency ended, the Dart River Jets weren’t legally allowed to collect passengers (they’re working on a temporary pass to allow this). Thankfully a local landowner allowed for a temporary off road route to go through their field. Meaning some with solid 4WD’s and enough clearance were able to get out from Monday night.

I’ve heard a few people (who had enough food supplies) decided to head back out on the Greenstone/Caples then loop back via the Routeburn, hoping that all the problems were sorted when they returned.

Despite initially thinking the road would be able to be up and running again in a day or so, there’s no time line when the Kinloch will reopen. The team at Kinloch Lodge are running shuttles (booking available here) from one end to the other to enable people to have access to the Greenstone Caples for the next few days, and will continue to do their best to serve those heading to Kinloch and/or the hiking trails.

But there are many who have decided to hang out with their cars and have an extended stay in Kinloch.

For continued updates, the Kinloch Lodge Facebook page is giving daily updates.

If you’re booked in to do the Greenstone Caples in the next couple of weeks, give the Queenstown DOC Office a call for the latest.

Update: Having checked the Facebook page before sending this newsletter, there’s now access to Kinloch via a temporary route around the slip. But only for 10 minutes on the hour.

😹 Hiking Funny

This was my new flatmate on her first night in the house after 8 days out on the trails earlier in the week.

🗒️ Other Track News Etc.

• If you’re in Nelson on 30th Saturday, Real Meals is launching a new gourmet meal with Real Meals Fiesta at MD Outdoors (Wakatu Square). Grab a free ticket, enjoy tasting new flavours, and be in to win spot prizes. Real Meal chefs and Nathan Fa’avae will be there too.

• If you want a behind-the-scenes of what it was like to retrofit the recently reopened Rob Roy Glacier bridge, this video might be up your alley.

• For the gear nerds. If you've got way too much time on your hands you want to add something to your podcast queue, this was a random chat about how Benjamin Bogler created the BoglerCo Trowel. One man, selling one product to bury your 💩. How good. At 13.5 grams, it’s crazy light yet is (close to) unbreakable and works a treat. You can buy it in NZ at Pack Gear Go and Coffee Outdoors.

• Eeek. I'll probably think about this next time I walk along the edge of a Ridgeline. Bruce was walking in the Kaimanawas when the ridge he was walking on gave way. With a 30kg backpack (what on earth is he carrying) his body twisted in all directions. He soldiered on with his friends to the campsite, but they used the PLB the next day when they realised he wouldn’t be able to walk out. Rescue came soon after. Source.

• If you’re on a DOC track, but you need to cross private land for a part of the track (and the land owners have given DOC permission)…but get into an incident, who is liable? There’s a grey area, and 12 outdoor groups have submitted a joint submission to hopefully gain clarity going forward. As it stands, some landowners don’t want to grant public access as they don’t want to be sued over any incidents, ‘Murica styles etc. Source.

• The Pahi Coastal Walk (Coromandel) won the won the Rural Women NZ Business Award in the category Love of the Land. Read more.

🎁 A Couple Of Competitions To Enter

• NEW $300 of Back Country Cuisine Meals - enter here (entries open until midday Friday 15th)

• An Awesome Prizepack with Racers Edge Wanaka - enter here (entries open until December 2nd)

🧔‍♂️ What I've Been Up To...

I spent most of the weekend crewing friends at the Arrowtown Backyard Ultra. But a couple of friends were heading into Deep Creek Turk for the night so I joined them for the first part of the journey, a step climb from Arrowtown to Brow Peak via the route known as Mono Brow. You gain about 1,000 metres in ~5km, but the views are epic. It’s one of my favourite ridgelines in Otago. Here’s hoping it doesn’t collapse on me next time.

I’ve got some friends heading into town for the Queenstown Marathon, so I’ll hopefully be able to get a couple of sneaky adventures in around catching up with them.

Have a great week, hike it up.

As always, reply to this email (or message me on Whatsapp +642041702764) with anything and everything…I’m happy to chat.

Chur,

Jub

p.s. get your friends to sign up to the newsletter: https://nzhikingnewsletter.beehiiv.com/subscribe

p.p.s. I was supposed to write about the book The Main Divide this week. Fail. The book expired on the library app before I finished it and now it's got a wait list 🙈 I’ll return to this!