A rich life in New Zealand has nothing to do with money: it’s our ability to drive hours into the middle of nowhere and find a hut waiting. Joe van der Hurk and Jesse Kelly have built a life around exploring river valleys, finding the folds in the map that most of us drive straight past on the highway.

Words Sarah Perriam-Lampp  Photos Joe van der Hurk & Jesse Kelly

Jesse Kelly provides outsiders clarity on what Kiwis take for granted. Her family back home in the UK think it is the ‘wildest thing’ that you can drive only a few hours into the middle of nowhere with a hut waiting for you and not a single person in sight.

A long way down a South Island high country gravel road, camped under the Milky Way, is the soulful backdrop of Jesse and partner Joseph (Joe) van der Hurk’s photography that inspires so many to experience what is on our backdoorstep.

It’s a livelihood they originally built around a battered blue 1960 Land Rover, inspiring those following their social media channels that if you work hard to get to the best places off-road, it’s worth it. ‘My younger years as a kid were really magical. I grew up with a family that hiked to DOC huts, campfires – that quintessential outdoor Kiwi upbringing,’ explains Joe. “We learned to be uncomfortable and put in the work to get to the view.’

The Dunedin-raised English literature nut cheerfully calls his Bachelor of Arts ‘officially useless’, although he credits it with a lasting love of reading about the natural world but not a traditional career path. He took off for Australia in 2017, doing van life well before #wanderlust was a hashtag.

‘I was following my nose and living out of a van and playing music but not realising how much I was falling in love with the aromas of the bluegums, the stark beauty of the red dust and the slightest elevation where you can see the curve of the earth.’

Joe showed Jesse around Australia, meeting her months after she landed in Melbourne from the United Kingdom. They lived with a couple who worked in the film industry who landed them their first paid gig creating content for brands both in Australia and New Zealand. While back in Joe’s homeland, Covid hit, and they were serendipitously based in Christchurch. By the time the world reopened, they had clients, friends and momentum, so they settled in Christchurch – partly because mates from Joe’s childhood had moved there to help rebuild after the quake, partly because it was so central to everything.

‘You’ve got the mountains, you’ve got the ocean,’ Joe says. ‘I don’t think a lot of New Zealanders quite realise
the magnitude of the landscape in Canterbury. All those river valleys.’

A shared love of photography has seen Joe teach Jesse everything she knows about a camera. He also occasionally needed a person in the frame, a role she took to with some reluctance.

‘The Instagram people seemed to care a lot more about the Land Rover, so I took that as permission to hide from the camera a bit,’ shares Jesse.

The 1960 Series II Land Rover deserves the attention. It was a dream of Joe’s since a moment a decade before when his car drank the river after a heavy rain warning had rolled over Mount Aspiring National Park while he and his girlfriend at the time were up in the hills. It was the ute full of Canterbury farmers, who nudged the drowned car clear with their bull bars, threw their packs in the tray and folded seven people into the cab, that excited Joe to have a four-wheel drive on his bucket list.

With a small inheritance, Joe unrepentantly blew it on the dream truck. His grandfather was a backyard mechanic with a weakness for English cars, so the affection was inherited. The odometer reads around 80,000 kms, which means very little, as he says she has been round the clock more times than anyone can say.

‘Between 1960 and now, she’s had lives I don’t know about,’ Joe says. She is on hiatus now, resting in storage. When she is running, she is not luxurious, and neither of them pretends otherwise. ‘On a hot day you’re sweltering, on a cold day you’re shivering, and you end up smelling of oil,’ Jesse says. ‘If it’s raining outside, it’s raining in the Land Rover as well. You’re really at one with the elements in that truck.’

Jesse admits then you wake up, ‘It humbles you. You think, it’s not that bad is it? I’m looking at Aoraki Mount Cook.’

After years of putting it off, Joe started a YouTube channel because someone told him they would happily watch a long-form video of him going camping – he thought it the strangest thing he had ever heard. ‘I gave it a crack.’ While the followers initially weren’t ‘enormous numbers, they were enough to make me think, okay, there’s something to this. People want to see it.’

‘I don’t want to say it’s inspired people, that’s a bit cheesy,’ Jesse says. ‘But it shows there are adventures to be had here, they’re not all in Central Otago. It’s a way more interesting way to spend a weekend than staying in and watching Netflix.’

The trips Joe treasures are the ones with friends, no cell reception and a bit of mischief. There are children on the scene now, taking a shine to the vehicles and the whole business of getting dirty. ‘Seeing that next generation coming through, so excited and fresh – it’s so rewarding.’

They say there is a heritage in New Zealand that they are worried about is not being passed on. ‘I would like to inspire parents to have their children get out under the night sky rather than keeping up with the Joneses.’

The couple acknowledge that not everyone has access to a four-wheel drive vehicle but would encourage parents to make the most of the access we do have into the high country.

‘It’s right there. It’s on our doorstep. We’re so lucky in New Zealand,’ says Jesse.

Joe says he would like to be a part of protecting that Kiwi way of life, as he has noticed it is coming under threat with conservation and government policy changes. One of the key issues he see’s is the foreign purchase of high country stations that have been owned and farmed by kiwi families for generations.

This concern stems from the recent and disturbing closure of a long-standing easment for Kiwi’s to access public land through a tiny section of Mount White Station in Canterbury. This came directly following the purchase by a foreign buyer who clearly doesn’t see why anyone should get to pass through his land. Joe is concerned more examples like this will follow and have a much larger negative impact on public land access for the 4×4 community, hunters and all Kiwis alike.

Going Back Country

Joe and Jesse’s five things to keep in mind when you are heading out in the high country four-wheel driving

1. It’s good to have a ‘go bag’ of medical supplies, food and water that can be grabbed easily if something goes wrong.
2. Be prepared to get stuck, carry a shovel and ideally max tracks. That will get you out of most situations but the best thing is to travel in a group with multiple vehicles and some recovery gear (rope, snatch strap etcetera).
3. An eye to the rain forecast goes a long way when heading somewhere you’ll be crossing rivers, they can rise and fall very quickly, if in doubt, wait it out. Leave your intentions with someone who will notice you didn’t come back!
4. Don’t forget your sleeping bag (true story).
5. You don’t need all the fancy gear to get out there, the tracks you choose, weather conditions and tyre pressure are all more important than fancy rigs with lots of 4×4 mod’s.

Watch Joe and Jesse’s adventures on their YouTube channel, A Fold in the Map.