Close to Home correspondent Richard Soult of 4x4Explorer.co.nz certainly gets around; last month he reported from the headwaters of the Rakaia River in the heart of the South Island, this month he writes about a recent return to ‘the winterless North’ and trip to and from the Poutu Point Lighthouse!

The main reason for my recent ‘road’ trip (back) to the North Island was to attend Fieldays at Mystery Creek. I was kindly invited to stay in Auckland with a couple of my regular guiding guests, Garth and Michelle Wood, and we all headed down to the show together.

I also knew that my great friend Jono Hitchcox of Lost Sheep Adventures was in Auckland and that he had planned a weekend to Poutu with Brian Norris, formerly of Rugged Life tents, a couple of weeks earlier, but had to cancel due to bad weather.

Several months ago, I was in Reefton getting some work done on the truck by Tash from Reefton Motors and had bumped into two young Auckland cousins, Jack and Jono, who were on a South Island trip. Seeing their enthusiasm, I took them up Big River and we had a great day out.

Jono 1 and Jono 2

Word obviously got around about my whereabouts because the next thing I knew I got a message from Jack asking me if I was still in Auckland and keen to do a trip. He told me that Jono was also in town but didn’t have his truck. Well I knew Jono (Hitchcox) was in town without his truck, and the idea of a run down to Poutu came about.

After some back and forwards, we agreed on the meeting point for Saturday morning and Jack told me that Jono couldn’t make it because he was doing something with his girlfriend who he hadn’t seen since starting university in Christchurch.

Hold on here a minute... Jono lives in Queenstown and works for Nomad Safaris and his girlfriend is in Queenstown. Obviously we were talking about two different Jonos!

Anyway, a quick call to Jono Hitchcox and he was on board as well. I had my friend Minchi coming with me and I’ve only got two seats, so Jono was going to ride with Jack.

I tried calling a number of other friends in Auckland, but due to the late notice, most had plans for the weekend and couldn’t come, including Brian Norris.

Anyhoo, come Saturday morning, we met up and headed up to Dargaville before dropping onto the beach and heading down towards the Lighthouse at the Southern end of the peninsula. The weather was perfect, the tides were right and we had a real blast driving the 80 or so kilometres down the beach.

Nature’s way

On the way down, we came across a seal on the beach, all alone. It looked as though it was in pain, but unfortunately we didn’t have what we needed to dispatch it. Lots of seals come up on the beach there to die and it wasn’t there when we drove the next day. I guess that’s nature...

The last time that I had been to Poutu was about three years ago, before our trip to Europe. That time, we had found an awesome campsite up in the sand dunes.

Before leaving, I called Mike Lea from Union Car Spares in Whangarei, to see if he was interested in joining us. He was busy Saturday but said he would come down on Sunday morning. Mike knows that place like the back of his hand and told me that the previous campsite wouldn’t be there anymore as the dunes are constantly shifting. I had logged the location of the campsite and when we arrived, Mike was right! The place was totally different with nowhere obvious to camp.

Truly stunning

The area is vast and honestly, you could be in the Sahara. Sand dunes as far as you can see, with the constant sound of waves crashing on the beach. Truly stunning!

Fortunately Jono had been there recently, and after a bit of a tiki tour and me getting bogged twice, (and having to use the Maxtrax to get us out) we found a great spot and set up camp.

A few motor bikes came riding through, but as sunset approached, we had the place totally to ourselves. We collected some firewood, dug a fire pit in the sand, got some cold ones out of the fridge and settled in for a fantastic evening. We talked about all sorts of things; 4WDs, the most scary moments that we had had whilst out on the trails, which were our favourite trips etc.

After a few beers, the stars were out, the sky was clear and we had our own five billion star hotel for the night. Nights like those are honestly the best ever!

At around 03:30, I was starting to get a bit cold and ventured out to answer the call of nature. I was amazed that the tent was completely covered in ice, so the XpeditioNZ diesel heater got fired up and I woke up at 08:30 toasty warm to a beautiful sunny day.

Jono (Hitchcox) had spoken to Mike and I asked whether he was a definite or a maybe. Jono told me that he thought it was a definite, and at about 10:00, the UHF fired up and a couple of minutes later, two trucks came rolling over the dunes to join us. Mike’s knowledge of the area must be amazing, because we were well concealed in dead ground and he found us straight away.

YouTube

Mike, Jono and myself, have done heaps of videos together, so check out Lost Sheep Adventures on YouTube. Jono is a complete natural and really fun to watch!!! Become a Patron and help him make more great videos.

After a bit of banter and a good breakfast, we headed out, back up the beach and back out. Mike and his team headed off to Whangarei, whilst the rest of us headed back to Auckland.

I suggested that we stop at the Puhoi pub for a bite to eat and a beer, and everyone agreed. If you haven’t been, the pub at Puhoi is awesome! It is packed with history from the Kauri foresting days and on a Sunday afternoon, the clientele is made up of families, middle aged bikers on Harleys and Muscle car drivers. It has a great beer garden and really a cool place to stop.

Driving through Warkworth, an orange FJ Cruiser arrived at a traffic junction. I knew that Brian Norris has an Orange FJ, so I hit the horn and got onto Jono to see if it was Brian and if he wanted to join us at the pub,

And do you know what? That’s right. It was him. And we stopped and had a chat. Neither I nor Jono had ever met Brian, despite having been in contact for years. The coincidence of him arriving at the junction at the same moment as us was incredible and meant that I had met another great four-wheeler!

Special in its own right

While the South Island is undoubtably the best place for Overlanding in New Zealand, the area around Poutu is very special and unlike anything that we have down South. It was great to get back there and to meet so many great people.

I will probably catch up with Jono next time I’m running a www.4x4exploreradventures.co.nz tour down South and hopefully the others will be convinced to head down and join us.

At https://www.4x4explorer.co.nz/?aff+2818 we have nearly 950 4WD tracks available. Each track has high quality photos, a detailed description and a downloadable GPS file to make sure that you find the tracks easily and don’t get lost.

As always, if you see us out on the road or on the tracks, don’t hesitate to come and have a yarn. The reason why we own a 4WD is to get to amazing places and meet amazing people!