Another month has zoomed by and we’ve been very busy getting the park ready for summer.
Spring means we have a very short window to cut and spray the bad stuff before it get’s knee high, essentially a 2-3 week window for the 15 or so kms of track that needs spraying!
Spring also means that flower laden broom and other trees start to lean into the trail corridor that need a pruning as well.
So the trail pixies have been busy doing this – thanks to Mrs Haven for doing the lion’s share.
Planting has been going well, but we still have a heap that need to be given a home, so come on out and have an explore and plant a tree!
In terms of trail maintenance, thankfully we have had little need, it mostly consists of raking the detritus off the tracks that have accumulated over the winter. Sweet!
We did go back and give some love to the berms on Fred and Project G. We were stymied by some heavy rain a couple of days after we first built the berm on Rotten Rock corner and a hole was blown out and a channel on the slope. This is all fixed up and we have added a mini wall ride at the start.
We had a couple of heavy bursts of rain which had me worried that we would have a repeat of the situation, but on inspection all is well, so this rain with the sun forecast will mean that she will be perfect for riding in no time.
We (ok I) may have made a corner a bit tight on Project G with the digger my cunning play to make a chicane didn’t come to fruition. A crew valiantly opened up the radius a bit in the height of summer when it was hard as concrete and it was pretty tough going. A few people were still having trouble (I say mostly 29ers!) so we intended to open it up further, but in winter. Whilst Mrs Haven was having fun doing her Berm Queen stuff, I smashed out a wider corner, good times.
Please note that both these tracks will remain CLOSED at present. They look very tantalising, but they are closed for a reason. The less traffic means they will season faster and be open for all sooner. Thanks.
Ali has been working hard on his track and we now only have one corner of his 34 corners to start. I would say it will be over a kilometre long and will be a absolute gem. You just can’t articulate the scope of his efforts. Over the last weekend’s session, we had a solid rock ridge with next to no bench ending with a steep climb close to a mature mahoe which had us all scratching our heads. I pop down to say hi after some guiding and he has demolished the rock ridge, cut a notch in the bottom slope of the rock to place other rocks and then filled it in, cut out a massive root of the mahoe (sorry mahoe!) and then moved a heap more soil down to lessen the steepness. Pretty much a three layer rock wall and a tonne of soil! Not bad for a 72 year old and this is just one of his magical sections!
Digger action has been a bit slow this year, but will have a couple of cunning plans that should come to fruition shortly, which we are excited about. More later…
Col is working on his fiendish plans for the teeter-totter for the skills area, so stay tuned, but the rest of it is riding well and it’s a fun bit of boardwalk. The massive berm is still bringing the kid out in all of us!
The rest of the park is ready for action and is as fun as always. The bottom loop has been remarked with the arrow signs and there is a lot of other tracks to explore as well. Enough to tire everyone out and plenty of places to rest up and listen to the birds and sounds of the countryside that don’t have anything to do with modern life.
We are pleased to say we are getting a lot of interest, please keep it up, we are really keen to share and show off the park, it’s here for you, the intermediate rider and everyone who wants to have a lot of fun! Fit people can just go faster and test your skills and flow and hurt!
Try before you buy, it’s $15 for a year’s worth of riding, $20 for a household. 1/2 price for the rest of the season. A bargain!
It’s been a while since we’ve had some photos, so I will shoot some for the next blog entry.
Roll on Summer.
Mr Haven