The sun was shining but the obstacles were deep, deep mud.
Southern Trailblazers held its annual 4x4 rally on Southland’s “landslip” in November 2024.
Competitors had travelled from around the South Island for the event.
In the weeks prior the area had seen significant rainfall which meant there was plenty of mud and the first challenge for most was the access road, most opting to leave trailers in the paddock and drive competition vehicles through the farm.
After driver’s briefing, competitors headed out to their courses for the day. Southern Trailblazers members had setup the 10 stages/courses the week before and these consisted of some man-made courses with large industrial tyres to drive over as well as a tyre pit full of old car tyres along with many natural hills, slopes and swampy bogs.
The first course was a large swampy bog. After a few drivers and navigators had assessed it the first 4WD pulled into the start pegs. His approach was simple, full noise with the V8 engine at high rpm the mud was flying and the vehicle slowly sank deeper and deeper. There were huge smiles on faces in the crowd and some looks of concern among other competitors who were now coming back for a second look. With the 4WD quickly recovered by one of the recovery tractors supplied by local farmers, another competitor lined up for their slice of the action.
The selection of vehicles competing was vast from standard SJ413 Suzuki 4WDs through to winch challenge vehicles and trials buggies.
At the lunchtime break there was a timed speed course for those who wish to enter, set out on a barrel race type track. This provided some interesting results with a lot of the high performance vehicles power sliding around the corners and putting on a show for the spectators while the less powerful vehicles took the turns a lot tidier and smoother, resulting in surprisingly competitive times.
A look through the pits at the lunch break saw plenty of work going on from remounting a Hilux steering box, punctured tyres or just topping up fuel, and plenty of tall tales of how spectacular their driving was.
A few changes were made to the courses for the afternoon round of competition.
On a hill climb which had a tight left turn up a step bank the first few vehicles stopped prior to running over a small gorse bush for some reason, then along came the landowner who was competing in his Land Rover Discovery-based buggy, running straight over the gorse with the V8 power and big tyres digging ruts up the bank. He was later seen walking around shaking like a dog trying to remove the gorse from down his jacket.
Rally convenor Todd Christie said the event was a great success and well supported by local businesses with sponsored prizes. He was pleased with the number of competitors “it’s awesome to see the commitment from some of these guys to travel six or seven hours to compete at our event.”
Another successful event run by the Southern Trailblazers 4WD club – the 2025 event will happen on 8 November.

Words Daniel Richardson, images Chris Watson