Meads Rd, which crosses Hunter Valley Station, is closed by station lessees Taff and Pene Cochrane for a few weeks during the spring lambing season.
It is normally reopened in mid-November but this year the barrier across the road remained in place, meaning campers would need a boat to get to Kidds Bush.
Yesterday however, Queenstown Lakes District Council chief executive Adam Feeley said the council had reached an ''interim'' agreement Mead Rd would be open to the public ''from now through the Christmas-New Year holiday period''.
The Otago Daily Times found the road open yesterday morning but council general manager legal and regulatory Scott Carran could not say how long it would remain that way.
''The end point hasn't yet been defined.''
The Cochranes installed the barrier four years ago, citing the antisocial behaviour of some visitors passing through the station.
The road is on the station's pastoral lease land and about 2km of it was never gazetted by the Crown as a legal road, although the council has maintained it since the 1950s.
The long-running dispute over the public's use of the road - involving the Cochranes, the council, the Department of Conservation and Land Information New Zealand - took a new turn in October when the council discontinued its High Court action to keep the road open to the public at all times.
Mr Carran said at the time, the decision recognised the cost to ratepayers and that the matter was best left to the station and the Crown to resolve.
''We don't see a lot of value in legalising that small section of road,'' he said.
In answer to Central Otago News questions this week, Linz deputy chief executive of Crown Property Brian Usherwood said the road was a matter for the council, as the local roading authority.
''Land Information New Zealand's involvement with the road has simply been to cover the costs of road legalisation by reimbursing QLDC for whatever action it needs to take.''
Mr Usherwood said that meant Land Information would cover the costs of formally declaring Meads Rd a public road ''plus any associated expenses such as public works compensation''.
''It does not mean that Linz will cover [the council's] other costs of court action it has taken,'' Mr Usherwood said.mark.price@odt.co.nz
