Walks guide gets a refresh
Trail network vision announced at launch for booklet
Thirty-five years ago, Jan Nisbet helped produce a small booklet chronicling a handful of the best walks in Kā piti. Helping her create Footloose in Kāpiti was the late June Rowland and Kāpiti Weekday Walkers as well as the then Kāpiti Borough Council.
Other booklets have come out over the years but the latest one, called Walks of the Kāpiti Coast, produced by Kā piti Coast District Council and spearheaded by tourism-focused contractor Janice Hill, delighted Nisbet.
“It’s so cool I decided it needed a launch. Janice has done an incredible job and it was a way of saying thank you to her.”
The booklet comprises many more walks too — a total of 18 — ranging from easy to epic, including some from the old booklet.
The launch, which took place last Wednesday, was also a good time to celebrate the many people who have contributed to the district’s cycleways, walkways and bridleways.
Nisbet said a key moment was in 2002, when the council set up the Cycleway, Walkway and Bridleway Group (CWB) at the same time as central government put out a policy expecting every council to get the most out of all modes of transport including walking and riding.
Most councils didn’t start doing anything until 2005 but in Kāpiti, the late Leon Kiel and Kāpiti Environmental Action (KEA) were lobbying for a cycleway beside the proposed Western Link Rd, now the Mackays to Peka Peka Expressway.
That lobbying landed on the desk of council officers Andrew Guerin and Jessica Polglase, who started a project looking at various connection options starting in Raumati.
It rapidly expanded to the whole district when Kiel and Linda Kerkmeester developed a desired CWB network. “From that time on, when anyone came to do a subdivision, they were supposed to always refer to the map,” Nisbet said.
There is still an active CWB advisory group that gives council ideas and heads-up.
Trail network vision
Meanwhile, at the launch, plans to try to develop an interconnecting Kā piti Coast trail network from Manakau to Battle Hill and beyond were announced.
The network would be in three different levels — the coastal plains, mountain foothills, and deeper into the backcountry.
Lots of the trails exist but work is needed to complete the network jigsaw.
“We would need to build about 30km of trail to connect all the existing stuff that might give us up to 250km worth of network,” said Steve Lewis, who is driving the network idea.
He said investment in a completed network could give a “great return” and “has potential to sit Kāpiti well within those Great Walks, Great Rides, economic development type of thing”.
“It could really put us on the map as a destination.”
There was a lot of work to make the vision a reality.
He said a trust needed to form especially to “dip into the bigger funding streams as opposed to the council stuff because they haven’t got any money”. “We don’t have to reinvent any wheels, we just have to follow on and utilise how other areas have been doing it.”
Getting support from iwi, local authorities and private landowners would be important too.
Lewis said talks had been under way with various quarters, such as the council, “with quite a good response”.
“All this stuff that we’re talking about, except for small sections, is on public land.”
He said if the network could be achieved “the outcome could be fantastic”.