Digger boosts bike track plans

Te Mata Park caretaker Shaun Gilbert starts to clear a walking track at Te Mata Park, in the precursor to a mountainbike development. Photo / Duncan Brown

Hawke's Bay businessman Rod Drury says he has "sneaked" on to the Te Mata Park Trust board and plans to help develop a "gravity park" to attract out-of-town mountain bikers.

He said visitors to Rotorua's mountain bike parks were worth $10 million a year.

"The number of Audis with mountain bikes driving seven hours out of Rotorua is huge.

"We have this fantastic gravity park that is under developed," he said.

"You can't even ride your bike from the top to the bottom unless you are super fit - it's a really, really rough track."

With a subsidy from Norwood and Kubota, Mr Drury bought the Havelock North park a digger.

"We are going to make sure there is a great track from top to bottom and we want to hold the national downhill mountainbike champs every year," he said.

Trust chairman Bruno Chambers said the mountain bike development was at least six months away. First a Te Mata Park Top 5 walking track project would be completed, to give visitors a range of walking loops from the main park gates.

"Up until now the equipment that we have had access to has been our caretaker Shaun Gilbert and a shovel," Mr Chambers said. "The digger will make a real difference in helping to progress the Top 5 tracks project that will then give the users of the park more choice of walking areas and more tracks.

"With over 200,000 people visiting our park every year we decided that we needed to focus at this stage on the experience that many people have in the park and ensuring that it is safe, well signposted and offering a variety of interesting and challenging walks."

Walking and biking areas would be strictly separate.

"Mountain bikes are here to stay, unfortunately. It is about making sure the interface is completely defined."

He said the park was a community facility that would be there "forever".

"We are keen to make sure we are providing what our park users and visitors want."

The trust has so far raised $1.3 million towards its $4.3 million target and is campaigning for corporate and community support.

"We want to make sure that every person who lives in and who visits the Bay has a chance to financially support our exciting project. This spectacular park is there for them and so we want to engage everyone and make sure that our park is the very best it can be without compromising any of the raw beauty the park offers."

For more information email info@tematapark.co.nz or phone Bronwyn Harman on 650 7747.