Thread: Kaimanawa Forest Park

Yep.

What about contacting the local press and submitting an article about it?
Starting to make noiseand spreading the noise.

CNI members have arranged a meet with TDC.

Desert Rd closed Thur/Fri 9 AM/6 PM.

Originally Posted by Woody

The rule breaking looked to me to be within the park rather than on private land. A sign placed on the park boundary against taking vehicles across at the river as happens elsewhere should suffice.

One problem is the park boundary is on the far side of the river, so people have already driven across before they see the sign.

So "Woody" asked me to have a quick look at two other roads accessing the Kaimanawas from the Desert Rd and also asked me to post my findings. Tree Trunk Gorge Road and Rangipo Intake Rd.

We use a website called grip.co.nz. It is a GIS website the at you pay a subscription. It is basically a user friendly version of our government cadastral system (called Landonline) and gives you access to survey plans and draft copies of titles etc as well as a NZ wide Aerial photo, it also shows ownership details and so on so is pretty handy (in my line of work anyway). You can sign up for a free trail to check it out.

My findings are below.

Tree trunk Gorge Rd.

Goes through two separate parcels. Part Rangipo North 4B Block and Part Rangipo North 4C Block.

The whole road was surveyed in 1981 on SO 33384-SO 33386 (attached) however it looks like this was never legalised through the gazetting process and so has remained in ownership/part of the original parcels.

Part Rangipo North 4B is the first section covering about the first 900m of the road.

It was gazetted as National Park in 1953

Gazette 1953 p1767



The second half through to the river is on Part Rangipo North 4C Block on Maori land (Title 494393). This is private land.



Rangipo Intake Rd

Goes through Part Rangipo North No 6C Block – Maori Land

Road was surveyed In 1971 by SO 28281

The road has been separated from its original parcel however I hit a bit of a wall with trying to find more info on this lot. I suspect it will be in the old Deeds system which are physically held by LINZ and haven’t been entered online. You are able to get them to send a copy so I’ll see if I can track down some more info.

The parcels covering Rangipo Intake Road are split in two and there is a small section in the middle where the physical road isn’t covered. There was a survey completed to fix this issue in 1974 but it appears that this was never gazetted and so never actually happened. There is a new recent easement survey (03/05/2022) showing that is being completed at the moment which might be the fix for Genisis for this issue. The gap in the road is shown below. The surveyor undertaking this survey is XXXXXXXX who seems to do a lot of work in this area (he has signed all the recent survey plans around the place).

I have attached another more recent survey plan LT 454308 from 2018 that looks like Genisis have possibly attempted to buy the land covering Rangipo Intake Rd and the right bank of the dam. An LT plan is a survey plan that has been approved by LINZ (in regards to the survey work) but the legal process to complete it and make it legal hasn’t been finished or has been abandoned. This seems to be a bit of a theme with the roads in this area so perhaps the land owners have been chopping and changing their minds or are tricky to deal with. The newer easement plan I mentioned earlier is probably Genisis trying to secure access to the dam by easement (right of way) rather than buying the road parcels as separate lots.

So to me it looks as if Waipakihi Rd is the only one that actually got the road land "taken" (or removed from the original parcel) all be it for "Water Development" purposes.

Let me know if you need me to take a squiz at anything else.

Cheers

Thanks for the input on this.

Time to buy an electric bike

An expensive toy to be flogged by the time you walk back to it. Same with vehicles parked near SH1 for a few days while in the bush. Happened to me way back on the Kaimanawa Rd carpark. Police found the culprits in Taupo - local scum who never worked aside from the drug trade.

Do any of these attempted road closures affect vehicle access to the DOC tracks which lead up to Umakarikari or Urchin (i.e/ 'the Tops Loop')?

Thanks

From a 4WD facebook page...
"This has come in from the Outdoor Access Commission regarding Waipakihi and Rangipo access roads
Herenga ā Nuku Aotearoa — The Outdoor Access Commission has received a number of enquiries about the entitlement for public access to the Kaimanawa State Forest Park from the Desert Road and Turangi area. Historically access for recreational pursuits like tramping, hunting, angling and four-wheel driving have used formed roadways like Waipakihi, Rangipo Intake.
These formed roadways originated from the creation of the Tongariro Power Scheme. Waipakihi and Rangipo Intake roads were taken by the Crown in the 1960s under the Public Works Act for the development of the power scheme and held as Crown land. Public access on the roadways (Crown land) has been accepted by the Crown during the time the land has been owned by the Crown. This Crown land is now being returned to the original owners.
The key is that these formed roads were never dedicated as legal roads. Once the land that these formed roads traverse is returned to the original owners, the formed roads will be private roads on private land.
Herenga ā Nuku Aotearoa will now work to assess the options for public access to the Kaimanawa State Forest Park. Due to the level of interest in this access, the Commission’s Chief Executive has contacted FMC national office to engage on this matter"

Copy and paste for me as well.

SERIUOS QUESTION.
It would be useful to us to have an estimate of total visitor numbers to the access roads per year.
Those of you who use these roads will have a few ideas on likely visitor numbrrs. These should include family picnicers, family campers, trampers, sightseers, fishers as well as hunters and assorted hangers-on.
Please give it some careful thought. We need realistic figures and not stupid bs stories please.
Personally I think somewhere over 20,000 annually but you may have better info to base a figure on.
Thanks in advance folks.

I have no input on visitor numbers, but I believe that yes it would be very handy to know.

So now the question is, will the current owner follow the PWA and offer back to the owner off whom the land was taken, which is DOC as the land appears to have been part of the adjoining National Park when it was taken for "Electricity development". I have put this question to Outdoor Access Commission and are awaiting their reply. To offer the land to anyone other than DOC in the first instance would be ignoring the requirements of the PWA, and if DOC have acquiesced and let it go then DOC is not fulfilling their own obligations under the Conservation Act, and some serious questions of them need asking.