Whangārei park gets new boot cleaning station to protect against kauri dieback disease

Richard Greenhill and Clayton Blackwood from DoC and Jerome Luiten from NZ Trackwork help install a new kauri dieback cleaning station at AH Reed Memorial Park. Photo/John Stone

The entrance to one of Whangārei's most treasured kauri tree locations has had an upgrade to protect its trees from Kauri dieback disease.

A new cleaning station was installed at the Whareora Rd entrance to AH Reed Memorial Park on Friday.

Whangarei District Council parks and recreations technical officer Stuart Jackson said AH Reed Memorial Park is a magnificent remnant of the original Northland kauri forest.

"Visitors, including wheelchair users, can walk along a raised walkway through a forest canopy of maturing kauri trees known to be at least 500 years old,'' Jackson said.

"It is a rare and special situation and we want to ensure people can experience it for generations to come. To achieve that we need to protect the trees that are there."

He said the barrel-and-grate hygiene station at the entrance to the park was replaced entirely by a high-tech boot cleaning station donated by the Department of Conservation.

The colourful cleaning station features a brush fixed to the base, and a pedal pump which sprays disinfectant on to the bottom of footwear.

The walk-through station, complete with a roof, allows users of the park to easily clean their footwear on their way in and out of the park.

Jackson said Whangarei District Council, Northland Regional Council, DoC, the manufacturers MW design and contractors NZ Trackwork all pitched in together on the station and used it as part of a Northland training programme to install these stations.

"We all want to protect our trees, not just for their own sake and all the benefits that come from a thriving ecology, but so that people can enjoy them too.

"Recent events have made us realise how fragile a privilege it is to be able to walk among these ancient, living giants. We want to protect them."

Stations will be installed on busy and high-risk DoC managed tracks in the kauri region, including at Mt Manaia Track and AH Reed Memorial Kauri Park in Whangārei, Trounson Kauri Park (entrance by the carpark and entrance by the camping area), in the Kaipara and Opua Kauri Walk and Kerikeri River Track (Rainbow Falls end), in the Far North.