Hunter Valley Station, Lake Hawea, is associated with years of news stories about public access - the latest being Thursday's delayed reopening to the public of Meads Rd that runs through the station to the Department of Conservation camp at Kidds Bush. But, as Wanaka bureau chief Mark Price reports, public use of Meads Rd is not the only access issue the station has been embroiled in this year.
A gloomy Christmas beckons for several families denied their traditional use of remote fishing huts on Hunter Valley Station, Lake Hawea.
According to a copy of a letter provided to the Otago Daily Times this week, station lessees Taff and Pene Cochrane told the ''users'' of five huts they had until May this year to ''either remove the hut entirely and/or any personal possessions you wish to collect from the huts''.
The huts are alongside the lake near the Fast Burn stream and all are on Hunter Valley Station land, leased from the Crown by Mr and Mrs Cochrane.
It is understood all the huts have now been vacated.
One hut dating back to the 1940s was provided by previous station owner Murdoch Drake and his sister Ethel to former All Black prop (1949-51) the late Hec Wilson while he was working on the station between rugby seasons.
His daughter Kath Johnson, of Clyde, confirmed this week that after more than 60 years' holidaying in the hut, this Christmas she and her family would be staying home.
''It was pretty hard for us to have to do the shut-down,'' she told the ODT.
''We've taken out the stuff we don't want to lose and locked it up and will wait and see what happens. I doubt we'll get there again.''
Tony and Karen Glassford, of Drybread, near Omakau, have another of the huts, a 3m x 2.5m army hut known as ''Aussie's Retreat'', which Mr Glassford's late grandfather Ossie Glassford put in place in 1934, with verbal permission from Mr Drake.
When Lake Hawea was raised in 1958, the hut was moved to higher ground and Mr Glassford says the majority of it is now on the station's pastoral lease land, although a small part of it and a storage shed is on Contact Energy leasehold land.
Mr Glassford believed the Cochranes were intending to rent out his grandfather's hut but he believed that would be illegal, and he said he would demolish the hut rather than allow that to happen.
''I don't want them to make a financial gain out of something that's not theirs.
''Legally, I could get a chainsaw in there and just tear it to bits ... take it off to the beach and burn it, which is what I may still do, in the end.''
Mr Glassford acknowledged he and others had only ''squatters'' rights, but he had offered to pay $800 per year to continue using the hut.
Mr Glassford said the owners of the five huts had decided to go public with their story after reading the Cochranes had closed Meads Rd through the station, to members of the public wanting to access the Kidds Bush camping ground.
It was announced this week the road would be opened for the Christmas-New Year period.
He believed the Cochranes were stopping access and ''trying to seal up'' existing accommodation in order to increase demand for accommodation provided by the station.
''It's straight out greed.''
Mr Glassford said the station had been on the market for some time and the Cochranes were attempting to add value to the property.
He planned to continue visiting the area, staying in the ''wee'' storage shed on Contact land 5m from the hut.
He could not get approval from Land Information New Zealand to move the hut to the Contact land.
Mr Glassford, who owns a 600ha farm, says a road runs through his own property to the Drybread cemetery and the public were welcomed.
But instead of putting a gate across the road to restrict public entry, he helped fence and upgrade it.
