My Account
Allison Roe says the connections will get us where we want to go.
The opening of the Matakana walking/cycling bridge in 2016 represented the first major milestone to realising the MCTT vision.
The MCTT anticipates the completed trail network will attract around 750,000 visitors each year.
The current and proposed trails. Green indicates an existing trail. Those marked in red are future possibilities.
The Matakana Coast Trail Trust’s vision of a stunning 250km walking, cycling and horse-riding trail network linking Puhoi to Northland has been on the drawing board for years. Mahurangi Matters discovered how that dream is slowly turning into a reality …
For former champion marathon runner and the founding chair of the Matakana Coast Trail Trust (MCTT) Allison Roe, it’s perhaps fitting that she should begin with a sporting analogy.
“If you have a dream or a goal you want to achieve, you don’t go out on day one and break a world record and head off to the Olympics. You actually have to do some work around making that happen and get to the point where that dream is achievable,” she says.
In this case, the dream she is referring to is a cycle, walking and bridle trail network that will extend from Puhoi to Mangawhai and into Northland. A network that will link communities, reserves, beaches, places of historical interest, mountain bike parks and all of the area’s regional parks.
“The connections will get us where we want to go – bringing people together along pristine beaches, beautiful rivers and unbelievable coastline,” Allison says.
The origins of the dream came after Allison, now deputy chair of the trust, was enlisted by trail
enthusiasts to help secure a 52-metre pedestrian cycle bridge on Leigh Road to complete a walkway/cycleway built by volunteers to connect Matakana, Point Wells and Omaha.
During discussions surrounding the project, it was felt that a single bridge for a single trail was perhaps not terribly exciting and the vision for a more comprehensive trail network was born. The upshot was the creation of the MCTT in 2014, which ultimately became an umbrella advocacy and support organisation for around a dozen community groups throughout the region – all struggling to navigate a myriad of obstacles to make their pet trail project a reality.
The Matakana pedestrian cycle bridge was completed in December 2016 and, four years later, the six kilometres Matakana to Omaha stretch is still the only substantially completed section of trail towards the MCTT’s ambitious goal. That modest progress reflects enormous challenges. To establish a short trail of even a few kilometres requires determining an accessible route and an approximate cost. The terrain may well be challenging. Crossing steep land or providing boardwalks across swamps or estuaries will require more money. Then trail groups must engage with iwi, the Department of Conservation and numerous public and private landowners to see if they are willing to entertain a trail across their land. Feasibility studies must be conducted. Even with all the plans and permissions in place, unexpected snafus can flush years of work down the toilet, such as when the Mahurangi Trail Society discovered last year that the proposed 7.8km route for its Snells Beach to Warkworth walkway/cycleway posed an unacceptable risk of spreading kauri dieback, leaving the society with no option but to find an alternative route.
But amid the challenges there have been some significant encouragements. In 2017, the Rodney Local Board unanimously approved a comprehensive Greenways Plan developed by trail groups to improve, walking, cycling and bridal connections between Puhoi and Pakiri, which identified priority routes for further investigation and design. Later that year, the MCTT won an appeal in the Environment Court that insisted on walking and cycling access through a major rural development between Puhoi and Warkworth. In doing so the MCTT set a precedent for other developments in the Auckland region to ensure similar access. In 2019, the New Zealand Walking Access Commission funded a full-time programme manager, Chris Charles, to negotiate with the various stakeholders to secure the necessary land access to start making proposed trails a reality. Late last year, the MCTT got a further shot in the arm with a grant of $500,000 from Auckland Council’s sport and recreation facilities investment fund that will be used to secure resource consents and fund other major grant applications.
For MCTT current chair Graeme Stretch, the appointment of Chris Charles has been especially valuable, successfully bringing together trail enthusiasts and appropriate Council departments and major landowners such as the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) and Auckland Transport (AT).
“Before it was all just noise to the NZTA and AT. Now they are beginning to see how the trail vision might actually happen. They have come on board and have begun to engage,” he says.
As the pieces of the jigsaw have started to fall into place, things are starting to move. Land clearing is underway for the next section of the Big Omaha Trail that will ultimately link Matakana with Pakiri beach. The first stage of a route from Point Wells to Matakana Country Park is through to the final stages of engineering approval. A Warkworth to Matakana trail feasibility study is in progress. Planning is underway for trails to cross Asia Pacific International land, north of Puhoi. A proposed boardwalk across the Te Muri estuary is “shovel ready” and fundraising for construction has started. The Omaha Pathway, which will connect the Omaha Community Centre to the end of the Omaha to Matakana trail is due to be built this year.
Beyond the current work on specific trails, the MCTT is engaging with iwi to help come up with a suitable name and branding for the entire trail network – something appropriate to the entire region covered by the network, rather than just Matakana. Graeme Stretch says although different trail groups will work on their own particular trails, the MCTT will aim to ensure they are all of high quality providing a “consistent user experience” that enhances the reputation of the brand as a whole.
To further this goal, MCTT has engaged global consultants WSP to do a desktop design of the entire trail network, which will more precisely identify routes and clarify costs.
The work is due to be completed early this year and provide a necessary level of detail that the MCTT believes is essential for further effective fundraising.
“In the beginning we thought we could start raising money straightaway, but actually you can’t, you have got to tick all the boxes” Allison Roe says.
Now that those boxes are progressively being ticked, a trail network that once seemed a rather distant dream could, Allison believes, be mostly in place within the next three to four years.
She says it can’t come soon enough. Over the next 30 years, the Rodney east region will be home to 150,000 more people and Warkworth, in particular, will be five times bigger than it is today – underscoring the need for more opportunities for recreation and alternative modes of transport.
“It’s ironic that while there are 22 Great New Zealand cycle rides, there is nothing between the Waikato and Northland, yet here is where the largest proportion of the population lives,” she says.
Allison adds that the trail network will not only be vital to ensuring that the region remains one of the most attractive in the world to live in, but also to safeguarding its future prosperity. The trust estimates the proposed network will attract around 750,000 visitors each year, many of them international cyclists – a particularly high-value tourist. On average, they tend to stay longer (33 nights, versus 16), spend more money and highly recommend positive experiences to their burgeoning number of fellow cyclists.
“This trail network is not just a nice to have. It’s a must have,” she says.
