Steve Lewis enjoys mountain biking in Whareroa Farm.
Steve Lewis enjoys mountain biking in Whareroa Farm.
With a final adjustment of the helmet, a brake-squeeze test, and a deep breath, the rider powers down on a pedal and sets off on one of the challenging purpose-built mountain bike tracks in Whareroa Farm.
It’s an exhilarating experience as the rider whooshes around bends, dives into dips,whizzes up rises, and soaks up the delights of the natural environment.
The farm has become a favourite destination for mountain bikers near and far because of the efforts of the Kāpiti Mountain Bike Club committee.
The committee, featuring about a half dozen people, has a clear over-riding vision to create an outstanding mountain biking destination.
Judging by the number of riders attracted to the farm every week, it’s clear the vision is working.
That evolving vision has involved a lot of planning and a heck of a lot of hard graft and dedication over the years.
The club used to operate in Otaihanga in a pine forest, close to a landfill, until the Mackays to Peka Peka Expressway construction meant it would have to close or find another venue.
Step forward Steve Lewis, who suggested Whareroa Farm could be an ideal place for the club.
“You couldn’t find a better place to put a mountain bike park.”
The farm was “an absolutely amazing resource” as it has its own interchange off State Highway 1, is connected to Queen Elizabeth Park, connected to the backcountry in the Akatarawas, and is “right on our front door”.
A digger carves out a track in Whareroa Farm.
It also has quite a bit of history attached to it, starting with Māori who used it for horticulture and had their pā sites on the flat land until 1850, then it was first farmed by Alexander Mackay, before being passed to the Wellington Hospital Board as a potential site for a chest hospital.
By 1942, with World War II raging, it was acquired for defence purposes and became a training and recuperation camp for United States Marines fighting in the Pacific.
After the war, it was developed by the Lands and Survey Department as a public recreation and education farm park.
The department was restructured in 1987 to form Landcorp and the Department of Conservation (DoC), which saw the farm managed by Landcorp and closed to the public.
By 2005 the government purchased the land, to be managed by DoC, especially after the community rallied to keep it in public ownership when a proposal to sell it off for private development arose.
The club formed a memorandum of understanding with DoC which saw various reports submitted.
While the MOU was being created, the club helped DoC create the Link track in about 2010 which went up to Campbells Mill Rd.
“That was like the chair lift from Queen Elizabeth Park and the roads at the bottom, to Campbells Mill Rd,” said Steve, who has been the club’s president for many years.
“It connected people easily into the backcountry, and got us on to Campbells Mill Rd which allowed us to go along it and then come down and create the other trails.”
A track takes shape.
The first trail the club started, in early 2012, was called Red Tape, and involved going through a bush-laden gully.
There was a bit of a kerfuffle at the time regarding the resource consent but it was eventually issued, hence the name of the track.
Interestingly, when the land was surveyed in the 1890s, a paper road was created through where Red Tape would later be. A metal surveying peg was found during the track construction.
Creating the 2.5km Red Tape track involved a lot of route-finding days, scrub clearing days, digger work and hand digging.
The club, which received a grant from Transpower, does maintenance of the track three or four times a year in conjunction with The Coastal Crew, a group of local mountain bikers.
A second track, created in recent years, is called Cash Flow (aka Bath Tub), which comes off Campbells Mill Rd too and joins Red Tape about halfway down, covering a distance of about 1.3km.
“It was a similar sort of thing involving a lot of route finding and clearing before we got a digger operator in again as well as hand digging.”
The club got a grant from DoC’s Backcountry Trails Trust to help build Cash Flow.
A third trail is in the planning stages with families in mind.
A track is ready for a wide range of recreational pursuits.
“We’re going to start one about a kilometre up the Link track and then down the side of one of the ridges - a smaller loop.”
While the club’s committee was focused on track creation, it was getting ready to “take it to the next level” by developing a website to create a strong membership which could help with funding stuff like a bike bath, signage, and more.
The farm was also part of a wider project where it would become one of the key links for the Kāpiti Trails Network, from North Manakau to Battle Hill, featuring various trails along the coastal plains, middle and backcountry.
“It will be one of the biggest economic drivers we will have on the coast if we do it right.”
But in the meantime, the focus is very much on looking after the farm’s mountain bike trails and getting the new track to fruition.
“Ultimately it’s all about people riding it and hopefully enjoying it.”
- This story appears in the Celebrating Kāpiti autumn/winter 2024 edition
