Esson's Valley Tracks
Picton · Marlborough
This walk was suggested by the community and checked against the authority quoted above before it was published. The route line comes from official track data. Marlborough District Council’s own wording: “Marlborough District Council lists "Esson's Valley Tracks - Humphries Dam and Barnes Dam Tracks", access from Garden Terrace, as a dog off-leash area for Picton, Waikawa and Koromiko. The council's condition is that dogs are under control at all times and that the person responsible carries a bag to immediately remove fouling, and a leash. The tracks appear on neither the council's prohibited nor its on-leash list”. Evidence: the rule-setter’s own published wording. How we check dog rules.
Good to know
Dogs are allowed here. Watch for ground-nesting birds and stock, and read the signs at the gate.
About Esson's Valley Tracks
Esson's Valley Tracks covers 4.1 km, near Picton in Marlborough.
Esson's Valley sits directly behind Picton, and the two tracks in it climb gently to the town's old water supply dams. Drive or walk to the far end of Garden Terrace at the southern edge of town, where the sealed road stops and a gravel track carries on up the valley. That access track runs about 1 km to a signposted junction, and from there the walk splits: Humphries Dam is roughly 700 m to the south west, and Barnes Dam is about 1.7 km to the east. The line drawn here does both from the car: up to the junction, out to Humphries Dam and back, then out to Barnes Dam, about 4.1 km one way and 6.8 km with the walk back down to Garden Terrace. Doing both is a comfortable half day. The walking is easy and shaded almost the whole way, on well formed benched track under regenerating bush with a stream alongside for much of the climb. Humphries Dam on its own is about 1.7 km one way from the road end, so 3.4 km return. Barnes Dam on its own is about 2.7 km one way, so 5.4 km return. Marlborough District Council lists these tracks as a dog off-leash area, so a dog can run here, with the council's own conditions attached: under control at all times, and you carry both a bag and a leash. Off-leash in the council's words is not the same as unsupervised. These are water supply dams with steep sided impoundments, and there are walkers and riders on the same benched track, so a recall you trust matters more here than the label does. Two honest caveats. The council's page says outright that the maps should be viewed to determine the exact location of restrictions, so the boundary of the off-leash area is drawn on their map rather than described in words. And the district-wide off-leash permission stops at any land prohibited under the Conservation Act or otherwise closed to dogs by DOC, so if you carry on past the dams onto DOC ground the rule changes under your feet. Kellie and Jack sent this one in.
Graded easy, it climbs about 136 m overall, and takes about 1 hr 2 min to walk.
Dogs are welcome here. This walk is on the map because Kellie & Jack suggested it, and we checked it against the source above.
