Glenorchy tourism operator gets creative with transport as flooding cuts off road access to lodge

December 6, 2019

Kinloch Lodge in Glenorchy has had no road access for a week, so John Glover took matters into his own hands.

An Otago tourism operator has had to get creative with guest transport with flooding cutting off road access to his lodge for a week.

John Glover, who runs Kinloch Lodge in Glenorchy, told 1 NEWS the lodge has been bringing everybody and everything in and out by boat.

"The lodge has been isolated for the last week, the road's been closed," Mr Glover said. 

"It's been closed since Monday, we're really hopeful it might open today that's the indication we've had from the contractors so that will make things a little bit easier.

"But the guests have had a great time, in the mean time we've managed to get everyone that wanted to be here into the lodge."

One of those guests is Toni King, she works for ASB and is at the lodge for a team building session. 

"We couldn't drive round so that was a bit of a problem," said Ms King. 

"Luckily the guy from Kinloch Lodge was able to come and get us in the boat to take us back and forth a few times 'cause there's a big group." 

The wet weather is taking its toll around the region.

Queenstown-Lakes District Council has put precautionary measures in place in preparation for more expected flooding, including keeping a 30km/h speed limit in Wanaka's CBD. 

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