If home is where the heart is, then this is home for three generations of the Hesson family.
Every Christmas and new year, up to 20 people at any one time may be camping in tents around the original musterer's hut the Jenkins family gave Bill and Maisie Hesson permission to use 55 years ago.
Bill and Maisie have now passed on - Maisie died many years ago when she was 42 years old and Bill, a former Dunedin City Council architect, in 2007, aged 79.
But their children, Paul (59), the late Nicola (who would now be 57), Jane (54) and Mark (52) keep the home fires burning, with the permission of the present landowners, the Purvis family.
Bill's place in the grand scheme of things has been preserved.
His ashes reside under a rock high on a hill and if one were to take a straight line from his rock down through the camp and partway up the hill on the other side, it would reach the cairn containing the ashes of his daughter Nicola, who also died in 2007 aged 53.
The ashes of Bill's grandson and Paul's son, Karl, who died aged 33 in 2006, are here too, on the hut mantelpiece, waiting for when the family is ready to lay him to rest.
But this is not a sombre place.
It's a land of laughter and imagination, a loved retreat and the scene of some memorable hijinks.
Rain gently taps on the tin roof of the family's open fireplace shelter as siblings Paul and Jane Hesson and young cousins Jessie Mollison and Briar Hardy-Hesson explain how it all began.
There is fresh coffee brewing, crisp biscotti and ripe Dawson cherries to nibble on, and a vase of white lilies decorating the camp table.
"Mum had a holiday job at the old Tarras store and used to come swimming in the creek at night.
She told Dad about it and they started coming for holidays in 1955," Paul recalled.
So began a habit that would also draw the family to the Lindis Valley in May and August school holidays and at Easter time.
For a whole month in summer, the children could wear the same shorts and T-shirt all the time, their sunburned skin smothered in calamine lotion.
Occasionally, Bill would line up his filthy kids and clean their necks with kerosene.
He also conducted early camp inspections every morning, with the children expected to have all their belongings precisely laid out.
"When we came home from being here for a month, there was carpet under your feet and the grass was so green - it would be so green and luscious," Jane recalled.
Over the years, the farming landowners have allowed the family to develop the shadeless, lupin-covered site into a sheltered, shady spot surrounded by trees planted by Bill and his sons Paul and Mark.
The Hessons say their relationship with the landowners continues to be an important one based on trust and respect, so they don't want to give away too many clues about its location.
At first, there were just a few rocks around the open fireplace and some rounds of wood to sit on, but now the fireplace has a chimney and a shelter.
Gas is used to cook during the fire ban season and 20 years ago a water tank and pump was installed for an outdoor shower.
More recently, the original hut was raised on to new foundations and a spacious deck has been added.
Every Christmas, the family would bring out the pot lids and bang them together to attract the attention of their neighbours, the Gilberts, from further along the creek.
They would also bring out the old 45 record-player and Maisie would endlessly play the song Lily the Pink (The Scaffold's version topped the UK Christmas charts in 1968 and the Irish Rovers made it into a minor hit in North American in 1969).
Silly masks, castanets and tambourines were also employed in the many interactions between the Hessons and Gilberts, although Jane says none of the Hessons was tuneful.
Other nearby campers were not spared.
The Edwards were dubbed the "Earwigs" and those who camped near a weir became known as "the Werewolves".
"Yeah.
And we grew up believing they were werewolves," Jessie said.
Witches were also rife in those parts and the spat-out remains of chewed grass stalks were presented to gullible children as evidence, Briar recalled.
The Cluden Classic Golf Tournament lasted about 20 years before becoming "too gross and sexist" to continue.
"It got beyond a joke. There were babies in prams, and golf balls flying everywhere ... Women were only allowed to carry the refreshments on to the course. There were crates of beer on golf trundlers... It got out of hand. We would have fields of 50 or 60," Paul said.
The car trips to the camp were memorable adventures in their own right.
Bill and Maisie would load up their old Vauxhall 14 with stuff and children, then tie more canvas kit bags to the runners and the bumper, before making the long trip over gravel roads from Dunedin.
Briar (24) also found long-haul trips an ordeal.
"We would drive down from Auckland. We moved to Auckland when I had just turned 10 so all through my intermediate and high school, we would pack up the car and trailer and leave Auckland at 7.30 in the morning and get to Wellington about 4.30pm and get on the 6 o'clock ferry and continue driving from Picton to Christchurch.
"Somewhere along the way, Mum or Dad would have a sleep for about an hour, say at Kaikoura, and we would get to Christchurch about 7.30 in the morning. Then we would spend two days with friends in Christchurch," Briar recalled.
When they got to the Lindis Pass, she would begin to get excited.
"There is one pine tree in the Lindis Pass. My sister would say, 'Can you see the pine tree?', because then it would only be another 10 minutes away," Briar said.
Jessie recalls childhood summers floating down the creek on blow-up biscuits, boats, tyres and crocodiles and spending hours playing at "Rock Town", a place first invented by Jane when she was young and where her sister Nicola now rests.
They called it Rock Town because the rocks were shaped like houses and shops.
Briar owned the bank and the vet's place.
Jessie had the beauty parlour, and other Hesson youngsters owned the mansion and the "Rock Shop", where adults would have to purchase rocks, using rock money.
When Paul's time is up, he wants his ashes spread here too, near his father, sister and son.
"That's what I want to happen to me. I want to be here," he said.
