Ara Hīkoi Aotearoa

After four years at the Walking Access Commission Asher Wilson-Goldman is leaving us. He takes time out in his last week to talk about some of the changes to public access during his time as strategic communications and partnerships manager. And he talks about some of the challenges and issues for public access in the future.

Professor Mick Abbott teaches landscape architecture and sustainable land use at Lincoln University. He has a passion for New Zealand's many special outdoor places. He is working on a project to develop a network of tracks and trails that will connect the people of Franklin-North Waikato to each other and to the awa. He talks to us about his view that landscapes can shape people rather than people shaping landscapes. You can see his Franklin-North Waikato report, including maps, on our website.

The 38km Link Pathway Te Ara Tuhono between Picton and Havelock is nearly complete. After 15 years work on it, one of its instigators, Rick Edmonds, is looking forward to finishing.
Edmonds says the idea for the path came when locals noted there was nowhere people could go for walks and enjoy the Marlborough Sounds environment, other than on the edge of the road.

Geoff Ricketts set up and now chairs the Ipipiri Nature Conservancy Trust, which this week bought Elliot Bay Farm in the Bay of Islands. You can see a map of the area on the Walking Access Commission website. The trust is going to preserve public access to the beach and also hopes to build a Great Walk standard multi-day walk on the bush-covered land.

Photo credit: Richard Craig Smart

Don Cameron is the new chair of the Walking Access Commission board. He''s also mayor of the Ruapehu District Council and a keen advocate for enjoying the outdoors. In this episode, he talks about the link between good multi-modal tracks and trails and protecting our biodiversity with traps.

Nestled between Auckland and Hamilton, the towns of Pukekohe, Pokeno and Tuakau along the Waikato river are growing rapidly. Tens of thousands of people are moving in as farmland is subdivided into new suburbs. Our Connecting Franklin-North Waikato Project wants to makes sure, before the houses go in, that local people can get around by foot and by cycle within and between their towns. In this podcast Asher Wilson-Goldman tells us what the project is, how it came about and what it will mean for people in these fast-growing towns.

Don Sinclair belongs to a group that is building a walkway to the Sir Truby King Bridge in Tahakopa. The Walking Access Commission recently granted $8,000 toward information panels on the new walkway that tell the history and stories of Sir Truby King.
Sinclair is an aficionado of local icon, Sir Truby King. So he and other locals are building a walkway as a memorial to the man.
Dr King the renowned doctor and founder of Plunket was a resident of the Catlins village of Tahakopa between 1893 and 1929. During that time, the railway came to the Tahakopa district and King was instrumental in helping that happen.

John Forbes has been with the Walking Access Commission since before its inception. Last week we marked his retirement and celebrated his contribution to outdoor public access in New Zealand. Many of the speakers, including John, took the opportunity to talk about the history (and the future) of the Commission and of public access.

Barbara Stuart and her husband Ian own Cable Bay Station near Nelson. They have shared the spectacular scenery and beach access on their land with locals and tourists for decades. She tells us some of the reasons farmers might want to consider for allowing public access on their land.

Sarah Cruickshank is the Walking Access Commission's GIS and IT Manager. GIS (Geographical Information System) enables our Access Maps to display all the information that people use when looking for tracks of public access. Sarah tells us how and why the Commission is updating its GIS, what it will mean for people using our maps and when you can look forward to the new system.

WorkSafe has recently confirmed that people carrying out outdoor recreation are responsible for their own risk rather than landowners or businesses. This matches the advice the Walking Access Commission has given since the Health and Safety at Work law came into effect. In this podcast Sam Newton describes the work that Recreation Aotearoa and John Palmer of the NZ Alpine Club did to get that change. And we talk about why it is good news for land owners who let people onto their land.

Sam Newton, Advocacy Manager for Recreation Aotearoa, talks about the government's new Wellbeing Budget. Traditional budgets focus on money and growing the economy. But the new Wellbeing Budget also focuses on people, the environment and our natural resources. It creates some exciting opportunities for outdoor recreation enthusiasts because it gives us a new powerful way to describe why the outdoors and recreation are both important.

The Ministry for Primary Industries is reviewing the Walking Access Act 2008. Asher Wilson-Goldman, the Walking Access Commission's Strategic Communications and Partnerships Manager talks about what the Act is, how it promotes public access to the outdoors and what people might want from it in the future.
MPI wants to hear from people interested in access to the outdoors, so it can get the best possible results from the review. The Act is about increasing free access to tracks, trails and other areas for all sorts of recreation associated with walking - biking, horse riding, four wheel driving, access by Māori to sites of significance, surfing, hunting and fishing.

To find out more or give your feedback:

•MPI Walking Access Act Review page
•Public feedback paper
•Summary of public feedback paper
•Online feedback form

Gillian Wratt is the chair of the Nelson Tasman Trails Trust. The Trust creates cycling opportunities in the Nelson region for cycle tourists and local cyclists. She tells us about the work the trust does on its two big trails. The Great Taste Trail is a New Zealand Great Ride, 174km long, with two thirds being off-road trails. It circles from Nelson to Kaiteriteri, inland to Kohatu then to Richmond and back along the coast to Nelson. The 43km Dun Mountain Trail is also one of New Zealand's Great Rides. Starting in Nelson it goes through Codgers Mountain Bike Park, climbs Dun Mountain (878m) and descends to the Maitai river back into Nelson.

Photo credit: Nelson Tasman Tourism at Flickr

In this podcast, Lesley Soper tells the story of the Omaui Track in Southland. Councillor Soper sits on the Invercargill City Council and is also a trustee on the Omaui Tracks Trust.
Since 2011 the Omaui Tracks Trust has worked to form a new walking track from the Omaui Scenic Reserve in Southland. The trail opened officially last year. It provides Southlanders and visitors with a new outdoor experience to the top of Omaui Hill, with an incredible view of Foveaux Strait and Bluff Harbour.
The track has already been getting good use from school groups, runners, pest control people and those who just enjoy a peaceful walk in the bush.
The Omaui Tracks Trust received an Outdoor Access Champion Award last year, recognising the Trust's achievements in enhancing public access and offering new opportunities for New Zealanders to experience our great outdoors.
There are some photos of the track and the trustees in our Google Photos album.

Grant Hunter has been organising rogaines on Canterbury farms for for twenty years. It's a different type of public access because rogainers need to roam over the land for a set event, rather than follow a formed path in their own time. He discusses biosecurity, health and safety, respecting farmers and other issues he deals with when organising events. You can read his full article on our website.

Photo credit: Wicked Rogaines

Last month Sport NZ's Activity Survey revealed that walking is the most popular sport or recreation for adult New Zealanders. We talked to the Walking Access Commission Chief Executive Ric Cullinane about what the commission can do to support our hundreds of thousands of walkers across the country.

Photo by Thomas Schweighofer on Unsplash

Longstanding Walking Access Commission staff member Ric Cullinane has been appointed as the Commission's new Chief Executive this month. Following his appointment, he took time to talk about what good public access looks like and the role the Commission plays helping private land owners with access issues.

The Walking Access Commission's kaumātua, Korotau Tamiana, describes his early work training men to create trails into the previously inaccessible Te Urewera.

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence (external site) (CC BY 4.0) *The dawn chorus of birds in the background of the audio is from the Department of Conservation (https://www.doc.govt.nz/nature/native-animals/birds/bird-songs-and-calls). The album photo of Te Urewera National Park is by Aroha Pounamu on Flickr (https://www.flickr.com/photos/27276881@N00/)

Peho Tamiana talks about whakatūpato - safety and caution in the bush.

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence (external site) (CC BY 4.0) *The dawn chorus of birds in the background of the audio is from the Department of Conservation (https://www.doc.govt.nz/nature/native-animals/birds/bird-songs-and-calls).