Constructon is officially under way on ‘‘the missing link’’ in a trail network, connecting Queenstown to, ultimately, Dunedin.
The first sod was turned on Tuesday afternoon on the 32km Kawarau Gorge Trail — linking the Queenstown Trails Trust network with the Lake Dunstan Trail — which will take about two years to build.
Southern Lakes Trails chair Aaron Halstead expects the cost will run somewhere between $8 million and $10m.
Halstead says it’s been a ‘‘long time coming’’, and has taken a huge amount of work from a large number of people.
The trust’s ‘‘incredibly grateful to the landowners’’, including Department of Conservation and Land Information New Zealand, who’ve provided access for the trail, but says the ‘‘crucial turning point’’ was funding.
The new trail, the Lake Dunstan Trail and a Wānaka link — being progressed in the new year — are all being funded from a $26.3m pool provided by central government ($13.15m), Central Lakes Trust ($11.15m) and Otago Community Trust ($2m).
‘‘The original proposition was 30 communities would be linked up with this $26.3m pool,’’ Halstead says.
While funding was approved in 2016, it has taken until recently for the Kawarau Gorge Trail to be signed off.
‘‘To be honest, I understand there are processes in government, and they take time, but our original plan was when we finished the Lake Dunstan Trail [two years ago], in a perfect world, would have been to roll straight into this trail.
‘‘And we were sort of led to believe, with the [conservation management strategy partial review], that we would be looking at maybe three months, four months.
‘‘It took 39 months.
‘‘Things take time, and we understand that, but I’ll be honest, there was definitely some frustration along the way.’’
Those delays had also impacted on the bottom line.
Because the original funding was approved in 2016, due to the massive increase in the cost of building and materials during the intervening years, the trust now faces a ‘‘massive shortfall’’, Halstead says.
‘‘We’re being challenged, as a trust, to find innovative funding sources or find [other] ways of doing things, keeping the quality as high as we’d always planned, but actually just being innovative with things.
‘‘We’re going to probably request some philanthropy — it might be for the bridges, or some other bits and pieces — and that’s all still to be worked out.
‘‘We’ve asked the tenderers to be quite innovative in terms of footprint … design, how they’re going to do this efficiently.
‘‘Some of the things we’re seeing have never been done before.’’
Challenges aside, Halstead’s thrilled to see work finally under way and believes the trail will create massive benefits for Queenstown, both in terms of tourism and business.
He points to the Rail Trail as an example of what cycling and walking infrastructure can do.
‘‘The pubs that were along that Rail Trail were nearly dead, right, and it suddenly created these business opportunities.
‘‘We talk about ‘regenerative tourism’ and ‘sustainability’ and I know they’re kind of throw-away words … but in reality, when you pull them apart, what that’s about is trying to get people ultimately to stay longer and spend more.
‘‘And I think this is a good proposition for that.
‘‘If they come and stay longer, cycle, play golf, drink wine, go skiing, that’s what is really good for us, I think.’’
Access like never before
The new trail will open up a part of the Whakatipu previously only accessible to the landowners, farmers and possibly some of the area’s first miners.
Halstead says the 32km trail saddles the Queenstown-Lakes and Central Otago border, between Bannockburn and Gibbston.
Two 92-metre-long suspension bridges are planned across the Kawarau River.
‘‘They’re going to be incredible,’’ Halstead says.
One will link Victoria Flats to the Waitiri Peninsula, landing at the latter in almost the exact spot of the original punt, used to take people across the river in 1866.
‘‘To get people on the other side of that gorge, they’re just so excited.
‘‘There have been moa bones found over there by the archaeologist during the walk-through for this trail — they’ve been found in an overhanging cave.
‘‘We’re going to put this whole heavy-duty perspex screen bolted onto there, so people can see them, but they won’t be able to touch them, obviously.’’
There are also plans to create a lizard sanctuary in the area, which will be ‘‘pretty epic, actually’’.
The second bridge will link the Waitiri Peninsula to just upstream of the stunning class-4 Citroen Rapids, ‘‘that no one ever gets to see’’, which Halstead promises will be a ‘‘spectacular’’ part of the trail.
Other elements include a bolted-on section beneath road level around the Nevis Bluff , being built by NZ Transport Agency, and an underpass, opposite Oxbow Adventure Co at Victoria Flats.
The project manager for the trail’s Southern Land Development Consultants.
