Freedom camping notices on DOC land: Wakatipu

What the notices mean in Wakatipu

The road from Queenstown to Glenorchy shapes much of the Wakatipu list. DOC has 29 current freedom camping notices in this district and 21 of them prohibit camping. Most of those prohibited areas are named stops along Queenstown-Glenorchy Road, from Bobs Cove, Twelve Mile Delta and Wilson Bay to Bennetts Bluff, White Point, Rat Point and Lake Face Creek. If you are driving that road, treat each of these as closed to freedom camping.

Away from the lakeside road, prohibited areas include Routeburn Roadend (6.7 ha), Routeburn - Weka Flat, Morning Star Beach, Mt Alfred Carpark, Lake Kirkpatrick, Moke Road (4 ha) and Roaring Meg carpark and picnic area. Oxenbridge Reserve is the largest notice area in the district at 8.6 ha, and it too is prohibited. Prohibited land totals 34.1 ha.

The 8 restricted areas, covering 10.5 ha, are where the conditions matter. Of those 8, 7 are for self-contained vehicles only, 7 allow no more than 4 nights in a calendar month and 6 allow camping only between 5 pm and 9 am. Chinamans Bluff carpark, Diamond Lake, Glenorchy, Glacier Burn Carpark and Greenstone River carpark carry every one of those conditions, so arrive after 5 pm in a certified self-contained vehicle and leave by 9 am. Diamond Lake needs particular care: Diamond Lake, Glenorchy is restricted, but the separate Diamond Lake, Glenorchy - Bloomfields Hill notice is prohibited.

Notice dates are 1 December 2012 for 20 of the current notices and 1 December 2017 for 9, with notice numbers from 121 to 288 across 21 distinct conservation land parcels. This district also has 13 historic notices that are no longer current, so an older list may include notices that no longer apply.

These notices cover public conservation land only and are not council bylaws. On the roadsides, reserves and car parks that the council manages, the Queenstown Lakes District Council freedom camping rules apply regardless of the DOC notices.