Mores Lookout Track
Riverton · Southland
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: “Southland District Council's Dog Control Bylaw 2025 (in force 1 October 2025) shades Mores Scenic Reserve as a dog on lead area on its Schedule 2 Riverton map. Clause 8(a): "No person shall take a dog into any public place specified in Schedule 1 or 2 as an on-leash only area unless the dog is controlled on a leash." We did not stop at the map. Southland District Council publishes the same bylaw as a GIS layer, and every one of the 67 points of the line drawn here falls inside its "Dog On Lead Area" polygon for Richard St, Riverton, with nothing from the prohibited, exercise or urban layers anywhere on the track. Great South says the same in its own words for this track: "Note: Dog access is allowed if the dog is on a leash." Signs at the Richard Street gate can change it”. Evidence: the rule-setter’s own published wording. How we check dog rules.
Good to know
Dogs are allowed here. Keep them on the lead, watch for ground-nesting birds and stock, and read the signs at the gate.
About Mores Lookout Track
Mores Lookout Track covers 0.7 km, near Riverton in Southland.
Mores Lookout Track climbs away from the Richard Street car park at the top of Riverton and runs about 690 m through native bush to a lookout platform, so a shade under 1.4 km if you walk back the same way. Great South calls it a 45 minute return walk and Rankers says half an hour; take the middle and allow the time you would give any bush track with a climb in it. The car park itself already has the view Inge mentions, straight down over the township and the estuary, which makes it one of the rare walks where the payoff starts before you leave the car. The platform at the far end is the reason to come. It is built up into the canopy, so instead of peering through trees you look over the top of them, out across the southern coastline and Foveaux Strait. Great South describes it as a tree-top lookout with bird's eye views of the coastline and forest below, which is fair. The track is gravel and easy underfoot, and the climb is gentle: the car park sits at about 128 m and the platform at about 161 m, roughly 37 m of gain spread over the whole length rather than concentrated in one nasty pinch. This is one of several tracks running out of the same gate. Hill Top Lookout Track leaves from the same car park and reaches a second viewpoint in about 350 m, and Kings Track heads off south-east through the bush, so you can put together a decent morning here without driving anywhere else. The whole network sits in Mores Scenic Reserve, on Howells Hill above the town. Dogs stay on the lead the whole way, and the reason is worth knowing rather than guessing. Southland District Council's Dog Control Bylaw 2025 shades the reserve as a dog on lead area on its Riverton map, and clause 8(a) turns that shading into a leash rule. We checked the drawn line against the council's own bylaw mapping point by point rather than reading a colour off a picture, and every point of this track sits inside the on lead area. It is council reserve, not DOC land, so no permit applies, and there are ground-nesting birds in the bush here, which is a second reason the lead stays on.
It sits at the easy end and gains roughly 37 m, and takes about 11 min to walk.
Dogs are allowed here, on the lead. This walk is on the map because Inge & Pip suggested it, and we checked it against the source above.