Island Hills Station Walking Track
Culverden · Canterbury
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. The rule-setter’s own wording: “Dogs are welcome on the track under strict criteria and controls. Dogs are welcome on the track, but they must meet the criteria and controls listed below so as not to upset other track and hut users, or disturb farm animals and wild life. There are pest control traps and bait stations along the walking track and at the huts, these are all dog safe. If you wish to bring a dog please read our requirements below and inform the track ranger via e-mail [email protected] at least one week prior to arrival at the property. Requirements: There may be other dogs and other people present on your trip, so your dog must not be aggressive or menacing in nature. All dogs must have had a recent worm dosing including active ingredients listed to control sheep measles e.g Drontal. Your dog must wear a collar or harness and owners must carry a leash to be used when appropriate, e.g around other dogs, around other people, while passing by farm animals or in areas where your dog is taking an interest in wildlife. Dogs are to stay with their owners on the walking track and not be roaming out of sight. Dog excrement is to be moved off the tracks and away from around camps and shelters. Dogs are to be restrained around accommodation sites so as not to scavenge around bait stations or nuisance other track users. Please muzzel your dog if it is known to attack birds. No pig hunting dogs. Dogs are not allowed inside the huts. (Island Hills Station, "Dogs at Island Hills Station", islandhillsstation.com/dogs/, read 4 September 2026. The station’s own words, and on a private track the landholder is the authority, so this page is the rule rather than a council bylaw or a DOC notice. The station’s walking track page repeats the gate in its own summary: "Permission to bring a dog must be pre-organised with the track ranger at least one week prior to arrival at the property." Note the station’s own warning attached to the huts rule, because it is the reason this access exists at all: "We have had this rule broken by some dog owners and received complaints from other users. We can’t afford to have YOUR dog spoiling someone else’s experience, if it happens again we will unfortunately need to ban dogs from the walking track." Zavra and Tutu sent this walk in.)”. Evidence: the rule-setter’s own published wording. How we check dog rules.
Good to know
The landholder’s permission is required before any dog walks here: the track crosses a working farm, and access is arranged with the farm ahead of your visit, with a current worming certificate, not from a DOC office. The details below say exactly who to ask and how far ahead.
About Island Hills Station Walking Track
Island Hills Station Walking Track covers 25.2 km, near Culverden in Canterbury.
The Island Hills Station Walking Track is a private, self guided tramp across a working sheep, cattle and honey farm in the Hurunui high country, about twenty minutes from Culverden. It is not a public track and you cannot just turn up and walk it: you book it, you arrive at the Cookhouse the evening before, and the track operator meets you at 8:30am for a safety briefing and a short farm drive out to the start. The station runs it as two or three days and calls it almost 30 km, split 11 km to Valley Camp, 9 km on to Bush Hut, then 9.5 km back through the open country to the Cookhouse. The line we have drawn from the mapped track measures 25.2 km with about 1,150 m of climb in it, a little under the station’s own figure, so take their distances as the ones to plan around. Ignore the walking time at the top of this page too: it is our standard one day calculation and this is a two or three day trip with a bed at the end of each leg. Your pack goes ahead of you by vehicle each day, which is a large part of why a walk this long is within reach of most people, and you only carry a day pack. The season runs from the second week of October to mid March and groups are capped at ten. Dogs are genuinely welcome here, and that is rarer than it sounds on this kind of country. It is the station’s call to make and they have made it generously, but it comes with a gate and the gate is not optional: you must email the track ranger at least a week before you arrive and get permission first. Do that part early, before you book anything, because the answer is a person’s and not a form’s. The conditions are the ordinary sense of a working farm, written down. Your dog needs a recent worm dosing with a sheep measles ingredient such as Drontal, which matters here because the stock is the business. It wears a collar or harness, you carry a leash and use it around other dogs, other people, farm animals and anywhere your dog starts taking an interest in wildlife. It stays with you on the track rather than ranging out of sight. A dog known to go for birds gets muzzled. No pig dogs, and no dog that is aggressive or menacing, since you will be sharing huts with strangers. The traps and bait stations along the track and at the huts are dog safe, which is worth knowing before you see the first one. The one rule to have firmly in your head is that dogs do not go inside the huts. There are secure kennels and runs, the station calls them dog motels, next to each accommodation site, and they will cart your dog’s own bedding in if you ask, or your tent if you would rather sleep beside it. The station says plainly that this rule has been broken before and that they will ban dogs from the track if it happens again, so treating it seriously is what keeps this walk open for the next person. Beyond that it is high country walking at its best: the Mandamus river terraces, native forest above the gorges, a historic pack track down into the Organ River, and the Bush Hut sitting in one of the largest QEII covenants in the country.
Expect expert going, with around 1,149 m of climb, and takes about 6 hr 57 min to walk.
The landholder’s permission is required before any dog walks here: the track crosses a working farm, and access is arranged with the farm ahead of your visit, with a current worming certificate. This walk is on the map because Zavra & Tutu suggested it, and we checked it against the source above.