South Island Road Report
Increased travel times coming for SH7 daytime journeys.
An essential rebuild of a section of State Highway 7/Lewis Pass Road means that road users will need to plan for daytime delays from next month.
From Monday 12 October through to Friday 11 December 2026, a 6.3km section of SH7 between the St James Walkway car park and Maruia Hot Springs is due to be resurfaced with new asphalt, replacing the existing layers of chip seal that have become unstable. This stretch of highway has reached the end of its serviceable life, and the work is necessary to ensure safe and reliable travel.
The roadworks over this period mean that road users will be required to stop on demand in both directions and delays of up to 20 minutes should be expected between 7am and 6pm on weekdays. People are encouraged to plan ahead and allow extra time for their journeys.
Because of physical constraints at the worksite, there will be no access for heavy vehicles (class 2 medium rigid vehicles or above) during these working hours. These excluded heavy vehicles will need to use alternative routes via State Highway 1 to Nelson or State Highway 73 to the West Coast. SH7 will still be available to all heavy vehicle types from 6pm to 7am weekdays, and throughout the weekends.
In addition to the delays during weekdays, two full closures of this section of SH7 will be required over the coming weeks to allow single lane bridges to be resurfaced. The timing of these closures is weather dependent and notice of at least a week will be provided.
Restrictions reducing and moving towards 24-7 continuous access
Strong recovery progress on State Highway 6 between Makarora and Lake Hāwea in Central Otago means that a shift to continuous 24-7 traffic access is in sight.
With work still to do on clearing huge volumes of fallen rock and other debris, as well as clearing unstable rock to remove further hazards, the existing pattern of traffic management is set to continue for now through the weekend and into next week.
This means that from 5.30pm tonight, SH6 from Makarora to Hāwea will be open over the weekend to continuous traffic, with temporary reduced speed limits in place and road users needing to stop on demand where the road is down to a single lane.
Daytime weekday closures with escorted convoys go back into effect from 8am on Monday (5 October), with the closure area operated by NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA) shrinking to between Wharf Creek to the north and Camp Creek to the south (see map below). The road will again be open to continuous traffic from 5.30pm to 8am on weekdays.
“It is still a dynamic situation on this route, as evidenced by the fact that this morning our roading crews had to deal with a fresh vegetation slip that was obstructing the road (see image below),” says NZTA area manager for the lower South Island, Chris Harris.
“But, overall, really good progress is being made in shifting fallen material and dealing with some sites where is still some elevated risk of rockfall or slips. Maintaining the daytime closures with convoys on weekdays while work is happening, for now, gets us faster towards the goal of having that continuous 24-7 access available.”
“We can’t put a definitive date on it yet, but when we do move soon to this continuous 24-7 access, vehicles will still need escorting by pilot vehicles through a certain section of the road where recovery work continues. This will mean added time to journeys, but the difference will be that people will be able to travel whenever they choose during daytime hours on weekdays rather than only at the designated convoy times.”
“We do appreciate that the travel restrictions on this section of SH6 are still taking a toll, but we firmly believe that the approach we are taking now will get us to the outcome we all want in the safest and most efficient way. When we can confirm a date for the move to 24-7 continuous traffic access, we will share that.”
The currently scheduled departure and return times for the SH6 convoys on weekdays next week are as follows:
Convoy 1 departs from Camp Creek heading north at 10am, then returns from Wharf Creek heading south at 10.20am
Convoy 2 departs from Camp Creek heading north at 12pm, then returns south from Wharf Creek at 12.20pm.
Convoy 3 departs from Camp Creek heading north at 2pm, then returns south from Wharf Creek at 2.20pm.
Stay up to date on any further changes at NZTA’s Journey Planner site.
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