With everyone returning back to Christchurch wanting to get stuck in to earthquake damage, we couldn’t get our normal digger for our January Dig Day. So we experimented with a slightly bigger digger (1.8T) which included a tilt bucket. This is something we were keen to try out on our berms. Feedback from Rotorua says they are just awesome for berms.
The task for the weekend was to find a suitable river crossing and then go back and join up the two tracks. You may recall we found the river didn’t turn as early as I predicted and therefore we went straight up the hill to see if we could get round the cliff. Yay for diggers.
Colin was soon tearing it up, completely the corner we finished on last time, building a sweeping traverse between some pines, developed a first cut of the corner leading into the creek and giving us a great approach and crossing over the creek. Whilst it was very hard to pull ourselves away from just keeping on going, we went back to the start of the track and starting there.
First Weekend
Second Weekend
The concept was to build a fun climbing track, relatively flat with good corners, something an intermediate rider can easily accomplish and not be blown at the top of the climb. Ideally the track would be fast and flowy in the opposite direction as well.
I am pleased to say it was a success, with the first three corners being made simply and magically. The next corner was a bit of a mission, finding a large rock seam, in fact it was almost all broken up rock and no soil, it’s gong to be tricky to berm this one up! This will require a bit more thought and work next time. From here we climb and have two more corners and Colin managed to link the two tracks up perfectly! We then ran out of time and didn’t really have a chance to use the tilt bucket. We will finish the corners and tidy up all the berms throughout the whole track next time, so we can give it a good test then. From memory there will be 20 corners to berm!
Charge!
1/2 Way
We have managed to get rid of a lot of vegetation, mostly undesirable and have plenty of space to plant natives at the end of summer.
To date Frank’N’Furter is 600m long. It’s all rideable right now. Lisa did a fantastic job raking up the track, smoothing and getting rid of overhanging plants and rocks.
3/4 Way
View from the Top
The rest of the park is riding well and it’s great to see people out riding and having fun. Come and make use of the park or help out at a Dig Day.
