Southlander Drew Riordan’s fuming that RealNZ again appears to be restricting access to Lake Whakatipu at Walter Peak.
For more than 30 years, Riordan, of Waikaka, has spent New Year camping at Mavora and during his holiday drives to Walter Peak for a barbecue on the lakefront.
But in January, 2019, he was astounded when RealNZ staff first told him and his mates it was ‘‘private property’’ and they couldn’t be there and, on two subsequent trips, he discovered a gate across the road had been closed and latched.
At that time, RealNZ ops manager Andrew Husheer accepted the gates shouldn’t have been closed, but said it was in response to public safety concerns.
Riordan tells Mountain Scene he went on his annual roadie last Thursday and was stunned to see a new steel gate restricting access to the lakefront.
He opened the latched gate, drove down and parked up before a ‘‘big red-headed galoot … came roaring down and said, ‘what are you doing?’’’
‘‘I said, ‘just sitting at the lake’, he said, ‘you’re not allowed, this is private property’.’’
Riordan maintains that’s nonsense, given it’s a public road, and there’s also Queen’s Chain land — publicly-owned strips of land normally 20 metres wide next to the foreshore, rivers or lakes — around Lake Whakatipu, set aside for access.
‘‘I said to [the RealNZ staffer], ‘I can’t shut the gate at Mossburn and stop everyone coming to Te Anau’.
‘‘It’s the same thing … it’s bullshit.’’
But Husheer tells Scene the gate in question’s a consented stock gate.
It’s closed at this time of year, to encourage people driving from Mavora to Walter Peak to use the public carpark, and walk the 200m to the beachfront, he says.
That’s for safety reasons, due to the high volume of foot traffic at Walter Peak, but Husheer notes the gate’s not locked, and drivers can still open it to access the lakefront.
