Quailburn Canterbury South Island 2023

Quailburn

Canterbury South Island 2023

New Zealand

Ahuriri Bridge Doc Campsite

The Ahuriri Bridge Campsite is on SH 8, 3 km north of Omarama we stayed here on New Year's Day for one night which was enough for us at this time of year as the traffic was horrific so not very relaxing, in saying that it is okay after dark.

The lupins are well past their best but were out and looking stunning mid-December when we passed through on the way to the farm.

Large area for camping

View from the front window across the road

Quailburn Doc Camp

We turned off SH8 6km north of Omarama onto Quailburn Road about halfway the road turns to gravel and at the bridge it narrows to one lane with nowhere to get off in our motorhome so I went in first in the Jimny to make sure nothing was coming out, I phoned Frog luckily getting a signal out.

Free to stay for 4 nights max, long drop, water from the stream, no dogs, and wifi patchy, we got good wifi staying on the grass opposite the Alps 2 Ocean Cycle Trail entrance.

We loved it so much that we stayed the 4 nights allowed

Peace and Quiet

View out the front window

Wairepo Kettleholes Track

We drove back up the road to do this in the Jimny it is close enough to camp to bike, and I'm glad we didn't bike the walk in the heat was enough to wipe me out.

We parked at the gate and walked along the public easement shared with the farmer to where the conservation area starts climbing over the stile, there is no formed track from here so if we were on the bikes we would have left them at the stile.

Easement farm road

Nice views along the walk

Over the stile and overgrown at this time of year

Water is low in the kettle holes and can dry out altogether in summer

Not many birds here in early January

We walked a loop around the kettle holes viewing the largest from one side

it turned the walk from 3km to 8km return taking 2hrs-27mins in the hot sun with no wind.

I recommend doing this on a cloudy day in summer as it was exhausting in the sun.

Quailburn Track

The next day I thought we could do the Quailburn Track I read it had severe storm damage and to take extra care but at least it would be in the shade of the mountain beech forest.

How wrong I was we took a different route that took us up a mountain, it had the normal doc orange markers on a waratah but there was no mountain beech forest.

View on the climb up

We reached the top where the markers stopped I was able to get a signal and the red dot clearly shows we are not on the Quailburn Track. I waited at the top while Frog went to see if we could reach the track from the back end.

Way down there I could see a waterfall

This is the track covered in storm damage

We managed to find our way through very slowly

The track has been cleared the closer we got to the start of the track

Looking out from the entrance of Quailburn Track

This is the sign where we should have started

What should have been a 30min walk turned into 4hrs

Quailburn Historic Homestead and Woolshed

All boarded up so not much to look at I was surprised it was so basic, it would have been an extremely hard life living amongst the snow mountains back in 1866.