Gravel Driveways and Rural Tracks: Blenheim & Marlborough
A gravel driveway is only as good as what is under it. DirtPro does driveway construction across Blenheim, Renwick and the wider Marlborough region: digging out the soft ground, carting the spoil away, bringing in the base and metal, and shaping it so water runs off rather than down the wheel tracks. On rural blocks we also widen, grade and drain access tracks. We are owner-operated and based in Fairhall, and we bring our own digger and tipper truck, so the digging, the cartage and the gravel all happen in the same visit.
Call John on 021 0226 1219 for a free quote, or send a message.
Driveway construction: excavation, base and metal
The ground work for a driveway is the same as for the gravel pads we build for houses, sheds and parking areas. We strip the topsoil and root mat off the line of the driveway, dig down to firm ground and cart the soft material away in our tipper, so it does not end up under the gravel where it will soften and sink. Then the base and the metal go down on solid ground, compacted in layers, and the surface is shaped with a fall so rain runs off to the side instead of sitting in puddles or cutting ruts.
Where a driveway or pad needs an accurate fall, we run a two-way grading laser with a Depth Master receiver on the digger arm, so John can see from the cab how far he is above or below grade. More on that in how we use laser levelling.
Not every job is a new driveway. On one residential property we extended an existing driveway and shaped the area around it, placed a gravel path up to the house and set the existing rocks along the path. If you would rather spread the metal yourself, we can leave a clean, firm, level cut ready for it, as we did for the owner of a gravel pad at Tuamarina.
What a driveway customer said
We recently had Dirtpro complete work on our driveway, and we couldn't be happier with the result. From start to finish, John was professional, reliable, and communicated clearly throughout the project. The quality of the workmanship is outstanding, and our driveway looks fantastic.
Christine Wardle, Google review
All of our Google reviews are five stars. You can read them on the home page.
Rural access tracks and farm roads
On lifestyle blocks, farms and vineyards, the driveway is often a long unsealed track. We grade and level farm and orchard tracks and access roads, do access track work on vineyard redevelopment blocks, and cut new or wider tracks where the old one will not take a vehicle.
At Mahau Sound in the Marlborough Sounds, the only way up a new-build section was an old goat track, steep, narrow and closed in by tree ferns. With the 14-tonne Hitachi we cut it out wider on very steep ground, enough for the digger and a caravan to get up it safely, then dragged the owners' caravan up to its new spot. Batters, cut and fill and dish drains around the house went in the same day. See the Mahau Sound goat track job for the full story.
Drainage that stops a track washing out
Marlborough gets long dry spells and then sharp, heavy rain, and a lot of the region sits on clay that holds water. On an unsealed driveway or track, water that has nowhere else to go runs down the wheel tracks and cuts ruts. The fix is drainage, built in when the track is made or added later:
- Water tables, the shallow channel along the uphill edge that catches surface water before it sheets across the track, with a cross-fall on the running surface to feed it.
- Driveable cut-off drains, shallow swales cut on an angle across the track to turn water off before it builds speed, shaped so a ute, quad or small tractor rolls over them at walking pace.
- Silt traps at the low points, so the silt drops out on your land instead of washing downstream.
- Swale clearing, so the drains alongside keep flowing and debris does not build up and block the culvert at the end.
At Delta Lakes, an owner-built hillside track had become close to unusable in wet weather. With the 5.5-tonne digger and a tilt bucket we re-cut the water table along its full length, reshaped the cross-fall, dug silt traps at the low points and added a series of driveable cut-off drains. The write-up is on the Delta Lakes rural track drainage page, and our swale maintenance job shows the swale side.
Old concrete driveway out first
If a cracked or lifted concrete driveway has to come out before the new one goes down, we break it up with a breaker on the 14-tonne Hitachi, load it straight into the tipper and cart it to a local crushing yard to be recycled into hardfill, not to the tip. See concrete breaking, removal and disposal.
Getting a quote
Quotes are free and no-obligation. A driveway or track quote usually needs a quick site visit to look at the length, the ground, the slope and where the water goes, and we usually get a quote back to you the same day. We do not list rates online, but we charge competitive hourly rates and our quotes are transparent. Call John on 021 0226 1219 or send a few details through the contact form.
Related projects
Need a new gravel driveway, or a track that stops washing out every winter? Call John on 021 0226 1219 for a free, no-obligation site visit and quote, or send a message with a few photos.
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