Paper roads

[NordieBoy]

as we extract metal from this farmers river beaches.
he said he owns the land under the water right across to other side.
it a section of river aprox 2km long, we buy the metal off farmer not welly regonal council. who control the water ways in our aera.

He may just have the mining rights?

[Winston001]

Warning: Anorak Content...

I'm going to be a pedant here, but the closest you are likely to get to the 'Queen's Chain' along the river in question is probably the aforementioned road (not sure about the easement???). To my knowledge, the 'Queen's Chain' where NZ is concerned is a fondly held, but largely unsubstantiated myth. If you want the good oil then try this but the short story is that there are a number of different types of strips along waterways, including those held under the Conservation Act 1987 and the RMA 1991 (which are probably not much use to bikers, as they are not rights of way), but these strips do not exist over every waterway, and are often as difficult as paper roads (or more so) to find on the ground.....

Spot on and your link spells it out nicely.

The Queens Chain only applies to navigable rivers of which there are few in NZ. If the river changes course, the Queens Chain doesn't move.

Under the Resource Management Act new subdivisions on rivers are required to create an Esplande Reserve which becomes Crown Land. Held by DOC, its a sort of modern Queens Chain.

just a note.
around here a few farmers on the Rumahunga River.
they own sections of river bed across to other shore. but dont have any right to the water.
so even if you where rideing on the stones so to say, you are tresspassing. crazy man..

Well yes you are trespassing. The farmer owns the riverbed but not the water. He can't take gravel from the riverbed without a resource consent - but he can't mine gravel from his own land without a consent either.

We have 150 years of meandering rivers cutting through legal titles. Every river has land which once upon a time was on the opposite bank. It's a source of longstanding feuds where one farmer has a free 50 acres owned by the guy across the river.

Technically its called accretion and erosion. Been happening for centuries. A survey is done, years later the river changes course leaving the old survey lines (which define legal title) and a mess builds up.

[pomgolian]

In the UK the main group who look after these road issues is the Trail Riders Fellowship, diferent groups look after thier local area and log all the legal rights of way. Having spent many hours at the local council looking through very old A3 size books with each page showing only a few hundred metres to find lost lanes like paper roads here (not to mention finding them on the bike and every farmer you met knew of the right to use them as i guess most would here). Coming to unspoilt NZ 5 years ago i expected to find more trails than the probably thousands of miles in the UK i was surprised how little trails are here that are not sensitively ruled or owned by farmers who try to protect thier land. Paper roads is something which seems shrowded in secrecy so if we had a database of diferent roads which could be used in each region how good would that be.

[Winston001]

Yes but England has centuries of ancient pathways which still exist and are legal rights-of-way which are binding on modern title holders. Bit of a nighmare for land owners but staunchly upheld by the urban population.

NZ is a fresh new country so those tyoes of pubic paths never existed for the first surveyors. Instead they plotted roads where they thought they might be needed which is why we have paper roads. They are legal roads but never been formed.

[monchopper]

Warning: Anorak Content...
This is all moot in this particular instance, as there is a nice paper road on either side of the river, so a nice wide corridor of public land to ride on. I just get antsy when I see references to the Queen's Chain. I'll get me coat.....

Many of our rivers have these 'nice paper roads on either side of the river' according to my Cadastral map. Some of them only have it on one side of the river. I thought these were the dark and mysterious Queens Chain.
They obviously aren't???

[Ixion]

Yes, it is . Leslie Road leads into Cecil road, and both are public roads. The Rotorua end of Cecil Rd is (deliberately I suspect) in very bad condition, impassable for cars. But it can be done on a bike (or could, when I was there). A road has to be VERY bad it be impassable for an adventure bike.

I *hope* that the no exit sign is the council trying to frighten people off.

But that reminds me that the council dude has never responded to my email. I will threaten him with the Ombudsbod.

EDIT: Threatening email sent , cc to CEO. We shall wait and see.

Aha. That elicited a reply. Rotorua deny all knowledge of the locks, blame South Waikato.

Same email sent off to South Waikato

Meanwhile a little adventurer waits.

[Ixion]

Interesting.

A reply (very prompt!) from SWDC, also denies all knowledge of any locks. They didn't lock the gates. Nor did Rotorua.

So, it's either CHH (WAY out of line!) or some local Mr Gubbins.

Anyone local got a gas axe? Any locks on the gates may certainly be cut off, or the gates legally circumvented.

[Skinny_Birdman]

Many of our rivers have these 'nice paper roads on either side of the river' according to my Cadastral map. Some of them only have it on one side of the river. I thought these were the dark and mysterious Queens Chain.
They obviously aren't???

Like I say, they are as close to the Queen's Chain as you will get. It just depends on the regime in place when the land was first alienated from the Crown, as to whether a road was set aside along the river bank, or whether a Marginal Strip was set aside under the old Land Act, or whether the rights granted by the title extend Ad Medium Filium - to the middle thread of the river, or whether some different situation exists. This is why you can have the road on 1 side and not the other, if they were alienated at different times. There is just so much variation it is impossible to make generalised statements, such as "there is a 1 chain wide strip of ???? land along each side of every waterway". It is also bloody difficult in many cases to figure out what the nature of the river boundary is in a particular instance. If we are surveying land on an ancient title adjoining a river we will often get a status report from a third party, because the research is so involved.

I see that I have been rambling - so to recap. The road is probably 1 chain (20.12m) wide, and is 'public' (Council) land, so yes, it is the Queen's Chain. Just don't expect to find it on every river you come to.

Cheers
A

[K slider]

We rode a paper road last week end, it had locked gates at either end, the true road was 3 kms away from the track we used. the land is owned by a trust and they gave us access however they get pissed off with people asking once and going there every weekend. The land owners have to maintain the roads repair fences etc and recieve no compensation for damage.
Often paper roadsont follow the route on the map.

[That looks like fun]

Interesting.

A reply (very prompt!) from SWDC, also denies all knowledge of any locks. They didn't lock the gates. Nor did Rotorua.

So, it's either CHH (WAY out of line!) or some local Mr Gubbins.

Anyone local got a gas axe? Any locks on the gates may certainly be cut off, or the gates legally circumvented.

And the No Exit sign?

[bigfish]

YAHOO!! Its open.

[Ixion]

Excellent news !

I wonder which council employee made a hurried trip to remove the locks which they never put there in the first place.

I advised both SWDC and RDC that we (anonymous 'we') would remove the locks since nobody admitted to owning them . SWDC ignored that. RDC were most alarmed. I got back
[QUOTE
The locks on the gates on Cecil are not the property of Rotorua District Council, and are not in the Rotorua District. This Council however cannot condone your proposed actions to remove the locks. We strongly urge you to find the lawful owner of the locks in question and do not support you to take the law into your own hands.
[/QUOTE]

He who runs may rede

[Ixion]

And the No Exit sign?

A paper tiger, now the locks are off. For a trail bike anyway. If it is as bad as it was when I rode it, I doubt an ordinary car could get through, so I suppose there is some validity in the sign, Granny might be annoyed if she got to the end in her Corolla and had to turn back.

[Waihou Thumper]

I shot up Leslie road, then into Cecil road. The road was open all the way through, awesome ride, foggy but good.
I then went through to the village, went out of town and then came to a dead end but the GPS said go through. It turned out to be a small track that took me onto a gorge road and then back to the junction of Leslie and Cecil road.
I carried on this road and it took me to SHWY5. I crossed that and then proceeded to ride all the way to Mclaren Falls.
Stopped in at the Mount BMW and then road Te Matai rd to Pyes Pa. The road was closed so I then went left at another forestry road and that took me back to SHWY5, intersecting with one of the mornings road.
It was a good ride and I was very suprised that the gates were open.
Infact, there were some gates that looked like they had been bulldozed or rammed. Good news for us all!

I did take a few wrong turns and these ended up in Farmers fencelines but all in all it is an awesome playground...I found a lodge, a lake and some pump houses too, so it was good days exploring and will definitely do it again, the next time I may explore left and right off Leslie Road.

That forest is big, I cannot imagine what it would be like in the Kaimanawa Forest! Explore that for days I bet....

[Eddieb]

Did lots of cool exploring down lots of cool sounding forestry roads....

And then posted up a tracklog somewhere so I can load it into my gps and see where you went, and whether it's worth taking sister and Bro in law there when I'm up. Hint hint......