It’s early days, but a new $120,000 walking and cycling track connecting the Peninsula Bay Reserve, off Infinity Drive, with the established tracks along Lake Wānaka’s foreshore below Peninsula Bay, is the latest project the Upper Clutha Tracks Trust (UCTT) has on its horizon.

UCTT treasurer John Wellington said this proposed 1.5km section of the trail is the missing link connecting the existing trails from Scurr Heights, through Kirimoko, to Peninsula Bay and down to the lake near Penrith Park. 

“[This] will create a new loop track starting from the centre of town, as well as creating good public access from the Peninsula Bay area to the lake,” he said.

The proposed track is tied in with the development of the Queenstown Lakes District Council’s (QLDC) reserve management plan for the newly created Peninsular Bay Reserve.

“The Peninsula Bay track has the outline support of Bike Wānaka [and] will also be subject to community consultation as part of the reserve management plan process,” John said.

The UCTT’s submission to this year’s QLDC annual plan process will include an application for $50,000 “seed” funding to support the proposed new Peninsula Bay track.

The trust recently secured most of the funding for an upgrade to Hāwea’s popular Gladstone Track and it is also currently developing projects along the Cardrona and Hawea Rivers, a track at Peninsula Bay and the Hikuwai reserves, as well as a short walking track at Makarora.

Over the last 12 months the trust has extended the Hawea River Track through the Albert Town reserve; installed ramps on the Pawsons Crossing Bridge at Albert Town and re-gravelled the track around the bridge; opened a  link track along Templeton street in Albert Town; marked a short extension of the Newcastle Track from the Kane Road car park to the Red Bridge; and added a short link between a fisherman’s access and the Upper Clutha River track near Short Cut Road in Luggate.

The Newcastle track extension.

The trust has also been working with Silverlight Studios and other parties to investigate the development of an active transport link between Wanaka and Luggate.

While the QLDC manages the maintenance and renewal of established tracks on council land, the UCTT’s role is to coordinate the big picture across the Upper Clutha’s network of tracks and trails, developing new tracks, providing advice to councils, facilitating projects and raising applications for funding to a variety of regional organisations including the Otago Community Trust, the Central Lakes Trust, the Lion Foundation and the QLDC.

To achieve this, the UCTT was awarded $50,000 by the QLDC from community grants for each of the next two years to cover the trust’s small operating costs and assist with some track maintenance, and to cover expenses associated with facilitating new projects, such as surveying and mapping.

The trust will also be submitting on the need for scheduled track renewal for older tracks in the Upper Clutha. 

“The Millennium/Glendhu Bay track beyond Waterfall Creek has had no substantial renewal or repair work carried out on it since it was extended in 2009, and parts are in serious need of attention,” John said.

“Similarly, the signage on the Hawea River track is now more than 10 years old and looking very tired.”

John said the QLDC’s 10 Year Plan, which became operative last year, indicated five tracks were funded for renewals in the Whakatipu Basin, but none in the Upper Clutha. 

“There is no breakdown of information in the annual plan on track renewals between wards, but the issue [of underfunding renewals in the Upper Clutha] has not gone away, nor appears to have been addressed.”

This year’s UCTT submission will remind the QLDC it needs to provide its Parks and Reserves Department with sufficient resources to fund track renewals throughout the district.

“We can advocate which tracks need renewing but the council needs to allocate funding to repair these tracks as council assets in the same way it does to a road,” he said.

PHOTOS: Upper Clutha Tracks Trust