Central Otago council, conservation and 4WD representatives have joined forces to safeguard the region’s back-country tracks and avoid a repeat of the Waikaia Bush Rd incident last winter.
Thirty-eight people in 4WDs were trapped for more than 20 hours in a snowstorm on the remote road last May, and it was vital to educate people about the potential dangers of such areas so they did not put themselves and others in danger, Central Otago 4WD Club treasurer Brent Wilson said.
The issue was discussed at the Otago Conservation Board meeting in Alexandra this week.
Representatives of the Central Otago 4WD Club, Central Otago District Council (CODC) and the Department of Conservation (Doc) decided at the meeting to form a group and prepare a strategy to tackle the problem of the dangers of some of Central Otago’s back-country tracks.
Responsible users of 4WDs, who generally belonged to formal 4WD clubs, were not the issue, but "cowboys" who liked to "compete themselves against the environment" and deliberately put themselves in extreme situations were causing problems, those at the meeting said.
"There’s definitely an element of those wanting to be challenged," Doc Central Otago manager Mike Tubbs, of Alexandra, said.
"They’re a headache for us and our neighbours."
Otago Conservation Board chairman Pat Garden said he was worried some landowners who allowed entry to their properties for off-roaders to travel over legal roads would start refusing entry.
Stakeholders wanted people such as 4WD users, hunters and back-country skiers to be able to travel the back country, but it needed to be done safely, Mr Garden said.
He had been approached by some off-roaders who said some of the region’s back-country tracks were in such poor condition they needed to travel in tandem to be safe, and increasingly needed gear such as winches to get through.
Those who travelled over tracks that had been damaged, for example those with deep water holes or hard-to-navigate bogs, particularly in the winter, were behaving irresponsibly and further damaging the tracks, those at the meeting said.
Mr Tubbs said Doc had inherited many tracks from pastoral leases that used to be farm tracks but could not afford to maintain them all.
Where tracks were well maintained people tended to ‘‘behave’’, but where tracks were not maintained people could be "a little more feral", he said.
CODC infrastructure manager Julie Muir said the council maintained as many of the roads in its network as finances allowed.
Doing more maintenance would obviously cost ratepayers more money, and deciding whether to legally close more roads during the winter, which was a riskier time for driving 4WDs in some areas, was complex.
She said signs warning of the dangers of some roads were often "shot up", pulled out or run over. Others at the meeting said if gates were locked, people sometimes used boltcutters to get through, and in some areas fenceposts were being used as towing points and pulled over.
Mr Garden said the Waikaia Bush Rd incident had been a "game-changer" and highlighted the dangers of irresponsible driving of 4WDs. Mr Wilson said it was a relief the people had been safely rescued, but those involved in the rescue were still reflecting on the incident.
"The issue there was, should they [the off-roaders] have gone there in the first place and I think we all know the answer to that . . . Some of them [those rescued] were chastened by the incident and learnt their lesson, but with others, quite frankly their attitude was reprehensible. They were already discussing ways to get back there on the way out."
The Otago Daily Times was unable to source a contact for any of the group that became stranded on Waikaia Bush Rd last year.
