You probably haven’t heard of Naike. It’s a small farming community located on Highway 22 between Tuakau and Raglan –on a line between Huntly and the coast, definitely a blink or you will miss it township, consisting of what was the local school till it got closed in a rationalisation, a hall and a few houses. However the local community seized the initiative when the school closed and has formed the Naike Community Incorporated Society to maintain and upgrade the school facilities for ongoing community use. As part of the fund raising they joined with the Manukau 4WD Club to run a 4WD Safari in February. As with most similar events it allows participants access to local farms that would not normally be accessible for off-road driving as the farmers look to help the local community fund raising initiative. We were keen to do the event as it was an area we knew fairly well from a year spent haymaking around the area in younger days, participating in numerous car club trials along the back roads that head towards the coast from Naike, and spectating car rallies on those same roads. The school grounds were opened up as a camp site for Friday and Saturday nights although a few softer off-roaders chose to commute from Auckland each day. Friday night was self help for food, but a great cooked breakfast was put on by the community on Saturday morning which got the day off to a great start. As is typical of such events vehicles moved out in self formed groups to follow an arrow trail at their own pace, with marshals locating themselves strategically at spots where they thought assistance or monitoring might be required. The countryside round Naike is quite hilly so some steep ascents and descents were provided and the valley bottoms tend to have swampy areas which still provided some interesting muddy play areas despite the region being in the middle of a drought – evidenced by the very brown colouring of the grass and vegetation which is unusual for the Waikato. The myriad of hills also tend to provide great vantage points, with views right out to the coast from some of them. The swampy bits were quite deceptive as they looked reasonably firm, but the mud was very sticky and once you started spinning the wheels you dug very quickly into the glutinous stuff under the top crust - this saw even well set up vehicles needing some help with a snatch from time to time.
The actual route had lots of easy and hard options so drivers could choose how adventurous they wanted to be and a number of play areas in the mud areas for spectator sport. There were plenty of shady bush areas to stop off for lunch or a tea break as needed and a couple of stream crossings for variety plus two waterfalls to see. Certainly the vehicles in our group had their adventures during the day, starting first, Shane stopped a few hundred metres from the school with a funny brake noise (probably a stone), then Phil got stuck and twisted a leaf spring hanger in one of the bogs, and we had a very unusual problem for a Land Rover product when the Rangie’s bonnet would not shut after being opened to inspect a squeaky fan belt (a consequence of it getting bent when it flew open on the way down - but that’s another story) The weather on Saturday was a bit overcast which kept it from getting too hot, but Sunday brought some rain to break the drought and make the grassy hills pretty slippery. Unfortunately due to family commitments we couldn’t do the Sunday run but reports from others said the early morning showers turned into more persistent rain and low clouds.

With the ground conditions being hard clay on many tracks this made it rather slippery as the rain didn’t soak in and soften the ground, but made the clay surface slick. This led to a few problems with some digging being required to get down to a dry surface in places, and by afternoon a few easier options had to be substituted for safety, while one section of the route was cancelled due to slippery tracks and steep drop offs. One of the high viewpoints only gave the view of the inside of a cloud, and a couple of unfortunate and rather damp marshals in an open top vehicle instead of the normal expansive views. Saturday night saw a huge dinner put on by the community, which certainly filled people up and a quick awards session with a few awards for first breakdown, first tow and the best blooper -which went to the Speedy Tyres team from Hamilton. The boys had decided to make a weekend of it and loaded up a trailer with all the essentials for Kiwi camping - BBQ, fridge and generator – no point letting the beers get warm, after all. The only problem was they hadn’t tested the generator/fridge combo. On arrival the gennie was fired up and then the fridge flicked on, the generator did a good impression of a smoke screen generator as the fridge load proved too much for it, bugger, so it was back to chilly bins and drinking the beer quickly before it got warm (what a hardship). Other campers’ setups ranged from basic (sleep in the back of the truck) to palatial, with a large motor home parked next to us with hot and cold running water, shower and even a Sky TV dish so they could keep us updated with the Black Caps – England One day game scores! All told a most enjoyable event that was well put together by Manukau Club and the Naike Community, a good mix of off-roading, scenery and socialising. Hopefully this will become another regular event in the calendar.