It's not an area many people go, and certainly not somewhere we'd have planned to go if we hadn't been scouring the guidebooks for ideas. Our tramp was in an area called the Clarence Reserve and is a mix of farmland, retired farmland and alpine tops/river valleys.
Quite a bit of the tramping was on gravel road or 4WD track. We thought it might have had the potential to be a bit lame but it worked out just fine. It was also more social because we could all bunch together and natter away! We didn't start walking until after 4 pm on the first day and didn't get to the hut until 9.30. Late dinner then bed. It was quite a flash, modern hut and seems to get quite a bit of use by a variety of users - trampers, horse riders, MTB, 4WD and quad bikers.
We didn't see a lot of native bush on this trip, but there were other items of scenic interest, such as interesting geology, to keep us entertained. Definitely some scrambling possibilities. 
There were also several historic huts. The route we followed for the first two days was a historic stock droving route from the Clarence Valley to Kaikoura. 
On the third day we ditched the 4WD track and headed up the nearly dry Gore Stream... 
...then the much more scenic Alfred Stream. Swimming stop compulsory. 
The lovely but seldom-visited Alfred Hut (a standard NZFS 4-bunker in good condition). On the 29th December we were the second party to visit in 2010! Or at least the second party to write in the hut book. We didn't spend the night here since we arrived at 2.30 pm, but we did have dinner and wait for the day to cool down a bit before heading up a ridge to our evening's camp. 
Speaking of which - a slight breeze to begin with but we awoke to a beautiful calm day and views of the Seaward and Inland Kaikoura Mountains. 
The last day involved some slightly arduous scrambling and a short but dodgy loose descent before things got a bit easier. We finished with a bit of a water shortage and a 4WD and pasture walk back to the cars.
