End of the trail in Ross: The West Coast Wilderness Trail turns 10 this year. Photo / Supplied
End of the trail in Ross: The West Coast Wilderness Trail turns 10 this year. Photo / Supplied
If you build it, they will come.. by bicycle.
New Zealand’s most westerly cycle route is celebrating 10 years of operation and for businesses along the central West Coast, what a wild ride it’s been.
West Coast Wilderness Tail welcomed its first riders in summer 2013. In the decade since, the 133km between Greymouth and Ross has changed the tourism landscape for the region.
The dairy plains are now home to an easy, Grade 2 trail that boasts around 7000 riders a year. Original committee member, John Wood says that this vision wasn’t always easy for others to see.
“The seeds for the trail had been sown in Greymouth in 2005 when a group of passionate community trail riders got together to develop a coastal cycleway along the Grey River and seaside front, through to the Taramakau Bridge.”
It took eight years of planning and construction before it was officially opened, with a ceremony at the renovated Kumara Theatre Royal Hotel on 24 November 2013.
As Wood now proudly states, it’s now “one of the biggest economic boosts to the visitor industry on the West Coast in decades”.
“There are so many people on it all the time,” says Jackie Gurden, West Coast Wilderness Trail Trust Manager.
Crossing the Kumara 'chasm' Bridge on the West Coast Wilderness Trail. Photo / Supplied
The Treetop Walkway and the West Coast Scenic Waterway, along the Mahinapua Creek, are some of the many businesses that have been “born from the trail,” says Gurden.
The wetlands south of Hokitika now hold boutique accommodation at the Kōtuku Cottage, and four other units managed by Cindy and Gavin Hopper, who also run guided boat tours of the historic waterways.
Where there have been dips in demand during Covid and large washouts in Summer 2019, the annual visitors have been pretty consistent. Not everyone is there to do the whole 133 km, end-to-end.
“We understand there are around 15,000 visitors drawn to the trail and 6,000 of them ride it in its entirety from start to finish,” says Gurden.
Word of mouth has kept visitors ticking along, as well as the relatively flat, accessible terrain.
She says they’ve had riders between 8 and 80.
The West Coast Wilderness Trail has been a huge success with many regions looking to the cycle route for inspiration.
The West Coast Wilderness Trail laid the groundwork for the Lake Dunstan Trail and other additions to the Ngā Haerenga Great Rides trails.
The West Coast Wilderness Trail turns 10 this year. Photo / Supplied
In 2021 the possibility of linking the Greymouth cycle trail to Glacier country was proposed by the West Coast’s long-term development project Te Tai o Poutini Plan (TTPP).
The ambitious plans for linking an Ōkārito cycle route to Ross were suggested as a long-term visitor strategy. Though, given the operating costs and $10 million per 25km of cycle trail, this goal of doubling the length of the Wilderness Trail remains a stretch.
The West Coast Wilderness Trail Trust says that their plans for the next decade are a little more modest.
“Looking to the future, within both Council’s Long Term Plan are health and safety and enhancement projects planned over the next 10 years,”
Raising the wetland walkway, adding safer road crossings and taking more of the trail off shared roads are feasible goals to keep them on track.
