S-DRIVE EXPLAINED
We are extremely fortunate in New Zealand to have an enormous amount of free access to the wild areas of this beautiful country, that we call home.
The vast majority of those, both locals and tourists, who enjoy the great outdoors respect this privilege and take only photographs and leave only footprints.
There are, however, very small minorities, who treat this country like a rubbish dump and seem to have no respect for the outdoors or those who follow and feel obliged to clear up behind them.
Why do it?
As a 4WD enthusiast, there are two primary threats to our freedom. One is the small minority who do not stick to marked tracks and cause unnecessary erosion or damage to historical sites. Macetown is a prime example of this.
The other is the amount of litter that people leave behind. This is something that continues to astound me! Why travel to a beautiful location and then leave litter?
I have often mentioned previously, the fact that we have an Ironman4x4 gear bag that fits on the spare wheel, which apart from being a very useful piece of Overlanding kit, is more often than not filled with other people’s rubbish on returning home.
Shout out
In December 2019, Adam Goddard of 4x4AdventuresNZ, shouted out, asking for volunteers to help clear up a short stretch of the Ashley River, close to Christchurch. Adam had contacted ECAN (Environment Canterbury), who had supplied paper rubbish bags and arranged a pick-up point for what we collected.
For those not from Christchurch, the
Ashley River is a superb playground for 4WD enthusiasts, motorcyclists, jet boaters and simply people walking their dogs. Unfortunately, with easy access from SH1, it is also popular with fly tippers and, judging by what we found, appears to be the scene of a few late night drinking sessions.
Adam was well aware that the situation was starting to get out of hand and that the next step might be an attempt to ban 4WD access to that part of the river.
The turnout was small but motivated. In all we had four vehicles. Adam and Jenny Godard from 4x4AdventuresNZ, Scott Newble from Opposite Lock Christchurch, Vinny from Southern Whitewater rafting and us from 4x4Explorer.
Wot a mess!
We met at 07:30 on Saturday morning and after a brief discussion and a distribution of rubbish bags, we set about the task. We probably cleared about two kilometres of track and what we recovered was simply astounding.
There were plenty of remains of heavy drinking sessions with hundreds of bottles and cans recovered. We recovered enough furniture to furnish a small house, including lounge furniture, computers and bedding plus a cast iron log burner.
We called it a day at about 12.00 and headed to Rangiora for a well-earned cold one. In four hours, five of us, and Hunter the dog, had filled four or five trailers and nearly 20 rubbish sacks.
All of the metal that was recovered will be sold as scrap and the proceeds used to fund a sausage sizzle for volunteers on our next outing.
Paying it forward
Judging by what we recovered, I’m sure that very little was left by those of us in the 4WD community, however, we need to be aware that unfortunately we tend to be tarred by the brushes of others and that this could have an effect on our ability to continue to enjoy access.
If you see anyone fly tipping, please take a note or photograph and report it.
There will be another clear up in a few months time and we would love to see as many people as possible out to help and have some fun. I will make sure that I post on 4x4Explorer on Facebook to let you know the next date.
Thanks again to Adam for taking the initiative to have organised a useful and fun day out!