Hi Peter.
This might be a non-issue but check up on trip three closer to the time as it could be problematic. Spicer Forest, below Colonial Knob on the Kaukau side, is still labelled as ‘closed’ by the council, thanks to the storm damage. Most of the forest is already closed by arrangement medium-term thanks to the wind-farm construction activity, but the Te Araroa route through the middle (which was originally left open) has also been very wasted, and consequently council-closed, since the storm several months ago. It’s worse than much of the other damage around the town belt, I think, particularly because there’s not really a network of alternative tracks and routes in the area which could otherwise be used to circumnavigate significant storm damage. (This might change once the two councils finally open up the forest into a proper park, post-wind-farm-construction.)
A few weeks back it was still possible to get through unofficially. A helpful person has even taped a route through the tree-fall, but near the lower valley part, at least, it involves a substantial amount of scraping and scrambling along fallen trees, sometimes about 1-1.5 metres above ground, at a guess. There’s also 6+ km of long, straight, flat road walking between Rifle Range Road below Kaukau, and along Ohariu Valley Road towards Spicer Forest, often without much margin on the edge of the road to avoid traffic around blind corners. Sadly not Te Araroa’s greatest stretch, imho.
(From a different Mike)
