Windy Tops

Tag: cycling

  • Proposed Tararua Cycle Track

    The Dominion Post and the Manawatu Standard both carried the story of a proposal to build a cycle track through the northern Tararua Range, between Shannon, into the Mangahao Dams and out to Ehetahuna. It turns out that this idea has been around for at least a couple of years (and here’s an earlier article on Stuff), although it’s the first time I’ve noticed it myself.

    The map, taken from a 14MB PDF hosted on Stuff, doesn’t give much detail and I’m having some trouble matching the squiggles to realistic geographic terrain on the topo map of the area. I think the proposed route from west to east appears to enter the range from Kakariki West Road or nearby, climbs up Pohehe and Ratapu, up to Ngamaia and Conical Knob, then around Massey Knob and Ngapuketurua. From here, I’m guessing the idea is to head down a spur via spot-heights 959 and 851, 675 and 670 to get to Harris Creek, and follow the Mangahao River back to the dams and out to Shannon. Apparently the plan would involve building a hut around Ngapuketurua.
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  • The right to walk from A to B

    I’ve found it interesting reading about the events in Auckland over the last few days, during which several thousand protesters broke through police barriers to walk and cycle over the Auckland Harbour Bridge. This was against the wishes of the New Zealand Transport Agency, which operates the bridge for vehicles only and had told the group they couldn’t walk over the bridge on its 50th anniversary. The protest was arranged by the GetAcross campaign, although the organisers claim they never asked people to break police barriers.

    I’ve never lived in Auckland and it’s not a place I know much about, but I was very surprised to discover that it’s not actually legal to walk over the Auckland Harbour Bridge. After all, if it’s illegal to cross the bridge without a vehicle then it seems like a very long way to walk between St Mary’s Bay and Northcote Point. Google Maps tells me that it turns a 7.1 km walk straight over the bridge into an estimated 12.5 hour 60.8 km walk, complete with warnings from Google Maps about possibly not having adequate footpaths along the way! Perhaps someone with a better knowledge of Auckland could confirm if this is accurate? It seems very strange, though. Several other bridges that come to my mind all have free walking routes — these being the Sydney Harbour Bridge (in Sydney), the Brooklyn Bridge (in New York), and the Manhatten Bridge (also in New York). Not having something similar for an iconic bridge in a place such as Auckland seems to be a confounding oversight!
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  • Te Araroa, National Cycleways and Recessions

    This morning I was reading Michelle’s latest post about the NZ government’s pending plans to help offset the recession by spending $50 million to build a length-of-New-Zealand cycleway. Michelle’s thoughts, which have been similar to mine, reminded me of how weird I thought the idea of a cycleway was when I first heard about it a few weeks ago. It’s not so much aversion to having a cycleway as the suspicion of why its has suddenly emerged now.
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