It’s been a long time between drinks – so I was surprised and excited to receive an invitation to join the Mōtū 4WD Safari for 2025 – and ironic as I was working in the Waikura Valley just days before. The Mōtū 4WD Safari (formally the Mōtū School Safari) is arguably the longest running 4WD Safari in New Zealand, starting off late last century. Mōtū is a remote rural community located halfway between Ōpōtiki and Gisborne on the head water plain of the Mōtū River north of Mātāwai. Due to COVID and Cyclone Gabriel the cyclic rhythm of the bi-annual Mōtū Safari has been interrupted somewhat – much to the disappointment of the dedicated attendees such as myself, but mostly of course for the Mōtū community and the incredible team from the Geyserland 4WD Club who spend months sussing out the routes and tracks, only to have the plug pulled – with nature having the final tick of approval.
For over 20 years Mōtū Safarians started at the school and wound their way up the valleys and mountains of the Raukūmara Range for the final nights camp on the Waikura Station, where I had been working. It was announced in 2019 that the safari would be run as a ‘Clover-Leaf’ event in 2021 which had the advantage that you could set up camp for three nights, which enabled the use of Caravans and Campers.
With the receipt of the email from Shelley Cornwall, I made a giant leap to the keyboard and sent out an email to the Auckland Land Rover club to see if anyone wanted to make up a team – and was delighted to get positive responses from three other club members only one of which had attended a ‘Mōtū’ before. For me, 2025 would be my 6th ‘Mōtū’ so assisted with sedating fears from the newbies and looked at addressing my own camping requirements. I decided I was getting too old to crawl into my 40-year-old hiking tent and splurged out on a new ‘umbrella’ tent along with a stretcher and self- inflating mattress. I dragged my future son-in-law, Myles along for his second Mōtū and convinced my wife to loan her new stretcher and mattress to Myles who could not believe his luck. We were sleeping in style this time!
We kicked off on Friday afternoon from Auckland and headed around the Bay-of- plenty on the six-hour drive east. There are no shortcuts to Gisborne. Dinner was had in Ōpōtiki and we headed up the Waioeka Gorge in a setting sun and turned off at Mātāwai and headed into the Mōtū Plains to the school. Camp was a casual affair across the road from the school with Portaloos and hot showers. Nick Tunnicliff driving a V8 Land Rover 110 along with his son Archie and Dean Maxted were already set up with beers in hand by the time we arrived along with Jack Rhodens with a very tidy Defender 90. Mike Fitzmaurice arrived after lights out and I did think about giving him a hand to set-up… maybe.
Saturday dawned a bit indifferent trying to make up its mind to be fine or not as we had a quick breakfast and drove across to the school because in my hast to sign up – I had inadvertently become vehicle number 1, so first away. There is a staggered start to day 1 where teams are released five minutes apart, so no time for a BBQ sausage – grab the ‘Rego-bag’ – a quick vehicle check by the Geyserland chaps we were on our way.
I sent Mike in front with his V8-Discovery 2 as pathfinder as he too had done a few ‘Mōtūs, followed by Nick and Jack. I wanted to be at the back to film the trip following Land Rovers into the ‘Wilds’ and handed the keys over to an unsuspecting Myles to drive for the day so I could play ‘cameraman’.
We headed south and turned on to Whakarau Road to follow the Waiwhero Valley for about 10km before turning west onto Rockwood Station to climb the southern flanks of Mt. Mātāwai. At the road we were already at 575m but in just 2km we had hit 790m in altitude, so it was a good climb on the early morning dew covered grass. Rockwood is a 400ha ‘run-off’ block for the next farm Rimu Hills – a casual 1,250ha milking over a thousand cows. From the ridge separating the two stations we enjoyed the expanse of the lush green valley way below us with distant views further west towards the Huiarau Range of the Urewera.
We rejoined SH2 just south of Mātāwai and travelled a couple of Ks on the seal before turning onto Otokorau Station and commence another climb over the great unmade bed of ridges and hills inland from Gisborne high above the highway. By this time, it was just after morning Teatime, so we found a nice spot for a brew under the shade by some yards which being the first crew away caused some confusion by the next team to come along.
Nick was having some issues with his exhaust which had rattled lose from the stainless length of wire he used to secure it, so we managed to bind it up tighter with more wire before heading on up the ridges. I noticed a series of Marker pegs along the ridge line that we had seen previously up the Waioeka Gorge proving to be the ‘First-Gas’ main pipeline between Ōpōtiki and Gisborne suggesting to me that the 600m high ridge line was possibly a more stable route to follow than the road 400m below us!
We made our way down towards SH2 again before ascending a 30 percent climb back up 300m to find a sheltered spot for lunch – where we were soon joined by several other Teams also looking for a sheltered spot out of the cool southerly breeze. The rest of the afternoon was a real ‘up hill – down dale’ affair as we snaked our way along the razor ridge following the gas line. As we turned off the ridge and started down an interesting section, Nick radioed through that he was hearing some disconcerting banging under the vehicle which proved to be the absence of radius arm bushes on the driver’s side, allowing the front diff to run amok. I used a deep socket and a large power bar to reduce the play on the thread, which reduced the movement a bit, but was not roadworthy.
Nick nursed the 110 over the next couple of ridges until we reached SH2 again about 4pm where his crew turned north to head back to Mōtū, while Myles and I shot into Gisborne and bought up all the exhaust mount brackets we could find and scrounged a couple of radius arm bushes off Gary Fowles before heading back to camp.
It was well past beer o’clock when we reached Mōtū – and Nick and Dean were well past trying to get the nut off the end of the radius arm. It appears that the nut had rusted on the thread, so me torquing it up had torn the thread off the shaft – so it was beyond a ‘bush- repair’ if you excuse the pun, so we grabbed the camp chairs and headed across the road for dinner at the Mōtū School. I was back in Gisborne only a week later and dropped off replacement bushes to Gary being very grateful for his generosity to help out a fellow Landy owner in trouble. Dist: 192.9km. Time: 10:39.
Next morning we woke to the screams of the Weka kicking everyone out of bed and a cool breeze which brought with it quite heavy rain by 8:30, so the crew kept their fingers crossed as we headed back through Mātāwai and turned down Te Wera Road then Moanui Road. This road was awesome! I had not been up into this area before and the road just smashes its way up a tight gorge to the foothills of the Urewera before turning up a steep incline up to the very large woolshed on Moanui Station were we found a bunch of soggy 4WDs and their owners huddled under the woolshed canopy. We stood here for some time catching up with old mates – shouting at each other over the rain on the iron roof and the wind water blasting us to the rhythmic tick of the electric fence unit.
Eventually the Marshalls pulled the plug, as the clay track below the woolshed had turned into a luge and the ‘twin-lock’ boys were having some geotechnical issues, so we pulled the horses around and headed back out to Koranga and followed Rakauroa Road over its 825m peak and down to SH2 with a curb side Lunch just before the old railway viaduct of the abandoned Mōtū rail link.
The rain had lifted by the start of lunch, so no steamed up (smelly) cars to climb in and out of – and we turned onto SH2 to travel up another great back road – Makaretu Road. Makaretu Road was one of those roads when you were glad there were no kids in the back seat as the previously enjoyed lunch would have been tossed long before we reached the woolshed at 600m! The woolshed was where we joined the route we followed on the previous Mōtū in 2021 driving around Te Kooti’s Citadel Pa of Ngatapa to join Wharekopae Road to the Rewe Rock Slide and Falls. From Makaretu above Rere Falls, we returned to Mōtū via private farm tracks to Kohanga Road and SH2. At camp – Nick, Archie, Dean and the 110 had been picked up by a Recovery truck and transported to Gisborne, where they picked up a car and headed home to Auckland. Dist: 171.9km. Time: 07:40.
It was fortunate that we had access to the Mōtū School for the final night ‘prize-giving’ as the weather had really packed up outside. The best entertainment is the results of the ‘Scavenger Hunt’ where you are provided with a list of jetsam to collect on the journey like a ‘Safari T-Shirt’ a ‘CD of Greatest Hits’ or a ‘G-string’ – the results of which do not bare lingering on – but very entertaining.
Sunday night the mountain giants awoke and hurtled their might and fury against our camp with rain and wind gusts that deformed the tent sufficient to push the food box off the top of the fridge landing with a loud crash in the dark. After Mike’s Ezy-Up pergola did a forward roll earlier in the evening, I opted to drop ours down and pack it away which was a very wise decision! It is easy to forget that the Mōtū valley is perched just under 500m AMSL, so with the altitude comes cooler temperatures and the river valley below formed a perfect concentrator for the wind. There was a bit of carnage around the camp the next morning, but the wind had dropped, and we were back to a blue-sky day.
Monday was home time – but not without a quick whizz around the block. We did the usual circuit along Phillips Road to cut across a station up to the western flanks of Mt. Taumataokaretū’ at 685m and returning on the Mōtū River Road. We then headed up Marumoko Road to cross private land and follow the Mōtū River back up to the Falls. Now came the interesting bit – we turned off Mōtū Falls Road and headed up a narrow gorge on clay tracks with several blind corners to negotiate and tricky hard twists that had slicked up with the heavy rain the previous night. This was a great low gear crawling technical piece of track that can test your driving ability as well as your vehicles flex as we continued to climb over 100m above the road.
Back to Mōtū to pack our dry tent and hit the road just after 1pm. Myles had not been through the Mōtū River Road, so it was a good excuse to show him the road and the Pakihi bike track. We got home just after 7pm.
A big thank you to Paul and Shelley Cornwall, the amazing crew from the Geyserland 4WD Club, the 16+ land owners that generously opened their farm gate to us and the great bunch of folk that came along for the ride. Dist: 420.6km. Time: 11:03.
