4WD Newz: 5. Southern Safari: It’s all go on Noname Road

One of the SINDA trip leaders gets his 110 around a tricky spot at Noname Road.

So it’s goodbye Reefton and hello to Geraldine in Canterbury, via a long highway drive – the only one of this length on the Southern Safari – and a little road without a name. Actually, it does have a name, Noname Road, or No Name Road, as some prefer. It also seems to have yet another alias; TomTom notes it is also called Kumara MugPlug (not mud plug!). The thing that sets Noname apart from many other tracks is the number of water crossings, a feature that was causing concern among the non-snorkel safari participants, already disappointed at missing the caves a day earlier (see report below). This was looking like another day sidelined, but the SINDA organisers decided it was worth a try.

4wdNewz has driven Noname several times and remembers it as much muddier. Traction all the way is now excellent, maybe it always has been good, but there are still loose, twisty, narrow parts to challenge drivers; it’s not a track for the inexperienced. When the rivers are running high and fast, Noname can be dangerous. It was just as well, then, that the biggest hurdle, Greenstone River, was meek, letting everyone across without much difficulty. Even if it had been fast and high, the SINDA guys had demonstrated that they have river work sussed; their calm competence was appreciated by many of the participants.

So we bid farewell to the tracks of the unique West Coast. The safari heads for the Black Forest station at Lake Benmore, via McKenzies Pass. Wifi may or may not be available, so the next post could be a couple of days away.