Thread: te tuhi road kaimais

Just looked on WAMs. Te Tuhi road is a legal but unformed road meaning that you can take your dog on the road. The legal road does not follow the farm track but winds all over, so a mapping app would be needed to keep to the road. Step off the road and you are trespassing on private land. The unformed legal road is administered by the local council and has nothing to do with DOC

I would write to the farmer, tell him who you are, that you are writing to seek permission to cross his land, name a couple of local referees who can vouch for you and say that you will phone in a couple of weeks to speak with him. You can tell him that you are aware of the legal road, but would prefer to have his agreement.

Moa Hunter brings out a very valid point: Unformed Legal Roads (paper roads) are well identified on the WAMS website. An absolutely brilliant website paid for by your and mine tax dollars. Be polite but firm, if you have a good GPS loaded with the correct data you can walk/drive the unformed legal road any time of the day or night. But take one step off the (generally 20m) wide road and you will be trespassing. But on it, you are on a public road, not 'his' farmland. All that free grass that grows on that 'road', that his stock graze, is not calculated as his farm area, and he/she does not pay rates on it.

But its far better all round if you can cross said farmland with his acknowledgement.
Shitheads can stuff up access for all of us, but in the case of ULR's, a road is a road. Public land.
Farmers (well, any who do due dilligence when looking at purchasing a property) know this. Modern tech now makes it a whole lot easier for those keen types who wish to, to traverse these unformed legal roads