Thomsons Bush
Invercargill · 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: “Thomsons Bush is a dog-on-lead area. Dogs are required to be leashed at all times. (Invercargill City Council, Thomsons Bush reserve page, read 3 September 2026.) The council states this for the reserve as a whole, so it covers every track on both sides of Queens Drive, the playground end included. The lead is not a formality here: this is a remnant swamp forest kept as habitat for native bush birds, the tracks are narrow and meandering, and one of the car parks is at a childrens playground. Note that the Waihopai Walkway, which you can join from several points in the bush, is a separate reserve under its own rules”. 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 Thomsons Bush
Near Invercargill in Southland, Thomsons Bush runs 2.4 km.
A flat 2.4 km loop through one of the last stands of kahikatea swamp forest left in Southland, about 2.5 km north of the middle of Invercargill. Inge sent this one in with Pip and set the pin at the Queens Drive entrance, which turns out to be within 17 m of where the track network actually starts. It is a short, easy, sheltered walk on well-graded paths, and the sort of place you can do in an hour before work. The reserve sits on both sides of Queens Drive on the northern bank of the Waihopai River, and the council counts 3514 m of walking track through it. Our line takes the main loop on the western side, in from Queens Drive and back to the same point, so you can lengthen or shorten it at the junctions to suit. There are several ways in: off Queens Drive, from Preston Street, from Gimblett Street, and from the Waihopai Walkway itself, which is the connection Inge mentioned. Parking is off Queens Drive, and one of the car parks is at the playground, so take the usual care with a dog around children there. There are toilets and picnic tables, and no mountain biking is allowed anywhere in the bush. What makes it worth the trip is the forest. Kahikatea swamp forest once covered this whole part of southern Southland, known to local Māori as Taurakitewaru, and the earliest survey map of it was drawn by J T Thomson in 1857. Within twenty years most of it had been cleared, and Thomsons Bush and the bush in Anderson Park are among the few remnants left. The backwater you walk beside is the old course of the Waihopai, cut off when the river was diverted in the 1960s to improve drainage, and one of the walkways is the remains of a loop road closed to cars in 1998. Dogs are on lead throughout. That is the council's own wording for the reserve, not our reading of a bylaw, and it applies on both sides of Queens Drive. It is a fair ask for the place: the bush is managed as habitat for native birds and insects, the tracks are narrow enough that you meet people head on, and the ground can flood in places after heavy rain. If Pip wants a longer leg after the loop, the Waihopai Walkway runs east from the southern edge of the bush along the river.
Expect easy going, with around 19 m of climb, and takes about 30 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.