Not sure if this has been posted, but there is one heck of a good Skywagon photo gallery here:

http://www.skywagons.net/photos-2/index.html

These guys appear to be having a great time flying 180s and 185s down in New Zealand.

Excellent! Just the sort of provocation I can use right now.

-DP

Much of that's probably been photographed during the Skywagon club's annual fly-ins, held in the deep south west of the South Island of New Zealand.

The club often bases themselves out of the small airstrip for one weekend, Makarora, tucked in the mountains near the Haast Pass. It always made for a fun few days of planespotting, judging the landings! There's a finite number of Skywagons in NZ, but they often have turnouts in excess of 30 aircraft for one weekend a year. I was lucky enough to grow up beside it and get involved once or twice.

That's a great collection of photos. Capturing the sort of adventures which I think everyone on this forum aspires towards.

Battson,

I take it that landing on beaches and gravel bars is legal in NZ? Is there a lot of public land?

It looks like my kind of place!

Scolopax wrote:Battson,

I take it that landing on beaches and gravel bars is legal in NZ? Is there a lot of public land?

It looks like my kind of place!

Certain beaches here are designated airstrips/runways. .

My understanding is most any beach is permitted to be used by the public with any recreational vehicle (including aircraft) below the high tide mark, unless they are Department of Conservation (DoC) estate or Heritage lands, and provided no persons or property is put as risk by their actions (basically meaning nobody complains).
The river beds are a little more questionable, it depends who owns it. There is a lot of land owned by "LINZ" (Land Info New Zealand) which I understand is basically public, but if you ask them for official permission then they will refer you to the land's "neighbours" - including DoC, who will say "no". But if you don't ask and nobody complains, there's no problem and nobody gets hurt feelings. It's really no different to driving a truck down a riverbed in my view - which everyone does at will. We don't have the litigation culture like the USA so liability is much less of a concern.

Many of the mountain airstrips depicted in the gallery are in National Parks, which require a concession from the DoC to use. Those concessions are organised en-mass for certain fly-in's each year. At other times of year it's up to the individual to apply for a concession; not everyone will follow the rules. Some of those photos are probably in the latter bucket, but you'd never be able to prove it