Hi Team,
I have been spending some time perusing the legal road information map found here https://www.herengaanuku.govt.nz/maps/help/examples/how-to-find-unformed-legal-roads.
There are lots of them! Large portions of them are in rather un, rideable areas but some look half decent.
Has anyone ever gone about getting access? Or if there is a farm track or road there, and the gates are open, such as in the image below, just ridden in? How do we go about using these areas without causing the community more issues?
I have always been interested in using Hull Road – but the times I have visited they have “Road Closed” signs and gates installed despite being a paper road, I assume by the locals to deter 4×4’s. Are we okay to just go in regardless? Just looking for some advice, and perhaps recommendations of some nice ones to practice ones skills without causing any grief?
Hey, yes it’s kind of a grey area sometimes regarding access, although it shouldn’t be! It’s sort of been the status quo for the adjoining land owners to have gates (and often locked ones at that!) over an ULR. Also not uncommon to see misleading signs like “no trespassing” on them dissuading use. Often times the farmers are approachable though, most just don’t want people wreaking things and running amok. In most cases where there is some kind of surface to the road this has been maintained by the adjoining land owners at their expense.
In the case of Hull road the signs may have been placed by locals, but it has been closed officially by AT at times in the past to keep the surface from getting torn up in wetter months. This was done with concrete blocks. That’s actually one of the conditions of vehicle access on an ULR is an obilgation to not damage it during use.
The more well known ones are seen as acceptable to use. Wilson Road in South Head is a good one to try if you don’t mind sand.
Some good info on access is on the AT website:
https://at.govt.nz/about-us/working-on-the-road/road-processes-for-property-owners/unformed-legal-roads-paper-roads
https://at.govt.nz/media/926025/Management-of-unformed-legal-roads.pdf
I generally try to do some homework on a paper road i’m looking at, find there the road parcel is and make sure the track you wish to follow is actually on the road parcel that whole way. If it deviates off that parcel, you actually would be trespassing onto adjoining land. So permission would have to be sought. That is a bit of a technicality to be denied access on however. If you look around on the maps you will find even trasealed roads that deviate in places. One of the reasons the road parcels where drawn up was to ensure access across the land for generations to come. We don’t ever want to loose that!
Thank you Daniel for those links they are very helpful