The skills park has been given some long overdue TLC, with the Mākara marbles swept off the ramps and landings. It’s now running much quicker.

Do you like jumps? Could you help out with a bit of maintenance around the skills park? Ideally it would be swept much more regularly but we struggle to find the time. So we’ve left a couple of brooms - one up on the start ramp and one under the mapboard - that anyone can use to do a bit of sweeping. There’s even a watering can to water the lips next to the water tank. Just make sure you turn off the tap fully!

If you know anyone with access to truck loads of good quality clay based soil, who’s willing to deliver to the park, send us a DM. We’d like to rebuild a few of the jumps but need some better quality dirt than was used last time.

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Looking after the seedlings planted in the park (with releasing and watering) isn't the most glamorous of work on the Peak, but it is vital to their success...and our vision of a world class MTB park in a restored native forest. So we offer volunteers a bribe each season - a trip to an inspirational patch of forest in the Wellington region. Previous trips have been to the Wainuiomata water catchment, Silver Stream reserve, and Matiu-Somes Island.

This year we visited the Karapoti Rata in the Akatarawa Conservation Forest. This behemoth is the largest in the world, and well over a thousand years old. Getting there involves a gnarly, off-track hike - unfortunately not something that can be ridden to.

Large rata were a common sight at Makara Peak up to 150 years ago. Fire and then possums killed off all but three survivors near Koru. With ongoing planting and pest control, we aim to have Northern rata brighten up Makara Peak once again.

At the March meeting of the Mākara Peak Supporters Management Committee, a motion was put forward and agreed to transition away from a paid membership model for the Mākara Peak Supporters.

We really appreciate all the people who saw value in becoming a paid Supporter over the last few years. We’ve worked really hard to put your membership fee to good use in the park, with plenty of new track built, natives planted and pests eradicated.

However, having a paid membership model comes with responsibilities and administrative overhead that is difficult to manage for a volunteer organisation of our size. The number of people becoming members has held steady over the last few years at around 250-300 people, which is a tiny fraction of the number of people who make up the 100,000 visits to the park each year.

In future we will offer a ‘free’ membership for anyone interested in supporting Mākara Peak, with the opportunity to financially support the park if you wish, at a level that suits you, through a donation, participation in events, or purchase of merchandise. We’ll be focussing our fundraising on specific projects, similar to the successful givealittle campaigns we’ve run for the Wild At Heart Suspension Bridge and the Skills Park upgrade.

As a result, we’ve put a stop on all memberships renewals, and issued refunds to anyone who has joined or had their membership renew since 1 March 2021.

Please ignore any emails you received today from our membership system saying that your membership has expired. It’s a buggy piece of software which is part of the reason for this change!

The new membership system will be up and running by 1 July 2021. More details on that to come in the near future.

Mākara Peak and Wellington Trails Trust

The Mākara Peak team are working behind the scenes with Wellington Trails Trust on ways for trail users to financially support their favourite trails, and get some great rewards in return.

If you’re not already, sign up to the Wellington Trails Trust mailing list at https://wellingtontrailstrust.co.nz/ so that you’re the first to hear about all the exciting developments happening across the Wellington trail network.

Any questions or concerns drop us a line at supporters@makarapeak.org.

Simon O’Brien

Chair

Makara Peak Supporters

Unfortunately due to a number of factors we've decided to postpone the Poker Ride that was planned for 14 February

We still think this is a great concept that offers riders of all ages and abilities a fun and stress free way to try out mountain bike events. So keep an eye out for a rescheduled event later in the year.

Recognise these corners? The Mākara Peak tracks crew have been out last scoping improvements to the OG (bottom) section of Starfish.

We’re going to work on the ‘flow’ so there’s less skidding into corners and add some rad new grade 4 features and lines. Think more drops, a wall ride, bigger & better berms that don’t stop mid corner!

Sunday afternoon digs will be starting up again this weekend. 3pm-5pm followed by BBQ and beers. Ride down Starfish to the dig site.

When the trail was built around 22 years ago, the pine forest was clear-felled and this was a barren hillside - look at this amazing native bush now!

Recognise these corners?

Sally Alley is open again! About 9 months after a massive slip during the COVID-19 lock down washed away a good portion of the track, the final touches have been put on repairs.

In addition to carving a line through the slip (with engineers approval), WCC and TGL took the opportunity to rebench the track and fix the drainage while they had the digger on site. So it will stand up to many more years of riding.

This means that Three Brothers Part 1 is now uphill only from the Sally Alley end up towards Upswing and then on towards Three Brothers Part 2. Please don’t be tempted to keep riding the wrong way down from Snake Charmer - we’d like to avoid any head on crashes!

Heavy rain might dislodge some debris onto the track - send a message if you come across any issues.

22 December 2020

An early Christmas present for all you shredders - Pōhatu is now officially open for riding! Thanks to everyone who turned up on Sunday to lend a hand and celebrate the opening.

Special thanks to Makara Peak Supporters Trail Crew members Mark, Coops, Clint, Iain & Kerei who were the driving force behind this build. We started way back in February which seems like a lifetime ago!

Plus we had core group of hard working volunteers who turned up regularly including Phil & his sons Lloyd & Myles, Simon H, Ryan, Garth, Patrick, Marty, Leroy, Andrew, Bruce, Dave and many others. Thank you for your time and dedication. Shout out to Mons Royale who donated some of their sick riding gear as a thank you for the hard work.

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17 December 2020

Come along this Sunday (20 December) and help us finish off the latest and greatest Makara Peak grade 4 track. Pōhatu - Te Reo for rocky or stony, due to the massive amount of rock work that went into creating the trail, including armouring the surface, edging the track, creating drops and rock garden features.

Hand built by the Makara Peak Trail Crew and volunteers throughout 2020, the end is in sight! With just a few tidy up jobs to be done this Sunday, we should be able to officially open the trail on Sunday around 4:30pm followed by a celebratory BBQ and beverage at the green container on Snake Charmer.

Meet at the end of Pōhatu, where it meets Smokin just before Snake Charmer from 1pm.

This volunteer, hand built singletrack connects the end of North Face to the end of Smokin, where Starfish crosses Snake Charmer.

It's starts off in a similar style as Starfish, with some small drops, catch berms and a bit of enduro-flow. After exiting the native bush onto an exposed ridge, things start getting steeper, the drops bigger and the fun factor ramps up. An enormous amount of rock was sourced from the surrounding hillside and used to armour and edge the track, build the berms, and create a series of rock garden features in the final 100m of track.

24 March 2020 update

We’ve made some great progress on the new grade 4 track over the last month or so of Sunday afternoon digs. The 3 to 5pm time slot seems to be popular, and the BBQ and beer/soft drink afterwards is proving to be a hit. Work parties are now on hold, along with pretty much everything else, until the COVID-19 lock down is complete.

The trail itself is looking like a slightly harder, slightly steeper, slightly narrower cousin of Starfish. There’s still plenty of roots, a couple of drops, different line options and of course plenty of Makara rock.

Thanks to everyone who has donated their time, with a special thanks to Gary and his crew at Western Builders who donated a day’s labour to work on the project. The smashed through a huge amount of work in one day!

18 February 2020

We're building a new grade 4 (advanced) trail that will connect the end of North Face to Starfish where it meets the 4WD track – it's the badly drawn red line on the map.

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Red line on the map shows roughly where the new trail starts at the end of North Face and links with Starfish

With the blessing of Brooklyn Trail Builders we’re shamelessly ripping off their successful approach of a 2-hour dig on Sunday afternoon followed by beer and sausages on the BBQ.

So drop by between 3 and 5pm each Sunday and check it out. The track starts just down the 4WD track at the end of North Face and Three Brothers.

This track will take the best parts of Starfish and make something even better. The terrain is perfect with just enough steepness, a good Mahoe canopy, and heaps of rock lying around. Think drops, jumps, roots, berms, high speed, alternative lines, and plenty of jank. Once complete, you’ll be able to ride Grade 4 from the summit all the way to the main entrance. Choice!

We’ve finally got a new park map showing all the latest trails including Pōhatu, and a helpful insert showing how all the summit tracks work.

Peak Flow is open! Thanks to the very generous donation from the Drury Family, the berms are now a thing of beauty, it's blindingly fast and there’s a couple of new table tops.

Thanks to the TGL Contracting Limited team for the mahi.

As always, it’s a bit soft in places so take it easy as it beds in. There are also a couple of new features so have a look before trying to set your new PB. It could do with a bit of rain, which is a weird thing to say in Wellington in Spring!

It’s been another busy 12 months at Mākara Peak Mountain Bike Park - check out our annual report for a summary of all our achievements and a sneak peek at what’s coming up next.

https://makarapeak.bike/201920-annual-report

Following are the details for the 2020 Mākara Peak Mountain Bike Park Supporters Inc AGM.

Monday 7 September at 7.30pm
Karori Rec Centre (access via rear of Basketball court)
251 Karori Road, Karori
Refreshments and a light supper will be provided.

Please RSVP by Monday 31 August to supporters@makarapeak.org (for catering purposes).

Our AGMs are pretty casual! We’ll do a brief review of the year and present the annual accounts. Then we’ll celebrate everything that’s been achieved over the last 12 months, and outline what we’ve got planned for the next 12 months and beyond.

There will be a chance to ask the committee any burning questions you have about the park, and share ideas on how to make the park even more awesome.

The existing management committee of Simon O’Brien (Chair), Stewart Glynn (Treasurer), Andrew Cooper (Secretary & Tracks), Mark Kent (Tracks Lead), Peter Leman (Conservation Lead), Simon Kennett (Tracks & Conservation), Evan McCarney (Conservation), Clint Brandon (Tracks & Events), Kerei Thompson (Tracks) are keen to continue for another year.

We could do with some help with running the membership, fundraising, and engaging the community. If that sounds like you, drop us an email.

It would be great to see you there.

To mark the park's 21st birthday, our new summit information panels were blessed and unveiled this morning by representatives from Ngāti Toa, The Makara Peak Supporters and Mayor Andy Foster. These are a fantastic addition to the park and tell the important story and history of the peak and surrounding landscape.

Thanks to Mark Kent fro the Supporters Management Committee who was the driving force behind this project, which had been two years in the making. Thanks also to the big team of people who contributed, and Wellington City Council who funded the project.

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TGL Contracting Limited have finished the upgrade work on Zac’s Track.

You can combine Zac’s Track with the recently upgraded T4 climb for a 20-30 minute grade 3 loop from the Peak. Or keep heading down Varley’s or Vertigo for a longer, more challenging descent.

Surfacing has been kept to a minimum, essentially a lot of rock has been pounded into the trail surface. It’s a bit soft in places, so take it easy while the track beds in over the next month.

Over time the riding line will firm up and the bench will narrow back to a pretty standard grade 3 width. This is approach makes the track much more sustainable and manageable from a maintenance point of view - which is one of the biggest challenges in the park at the moment. If grade 3 flow isn’t your thing, or you’re looking for variety or the next track to progress on, have a go at north face which is at the easier end of grade 4 (and started life as a grade 3 so not too steep).

This work was possible thanks to a grant from the Ian ‘Zac’ Pearson Memorial Fund which is administered by the Nikau Foundation.

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This winter a hardy group of passionate volunteers have been toiling away in the southern end of the park working to establish a podocarp forest.

The Kohanga o Porokapa project team has planted hundreds of seedlings, built access tracks and a pig proof fence has started to be erected. Thanks to everyone who has come along and donated their time and did the mahi.

With a couple of sessions left in early August, there’s still time to come along and help this important project. Check out the events page on the main page for all the details.

Also a big thanks to the crew from Z Energy who donated a days work to the park. They expertly planted 170 seedlings, built a little bit of track, and passed the ‘Mega-mesh Team Building” challenge with lots of laughter and interesting banter.

Now that we’re back at COVID alert level 1 , our dig days on the trail that will link North Face to Starfish are back up and running. Every Sunday from 2 - 4pm, followed by a BBQ and beer.

The Kohanga project is also back up and running. Come along and help create a podocarp stronghold at the south end of the park. The aim is to plant a thousand podocarps - Rimu, Totara, Kahikatea, Matai and Miro - in the hectare of retired farmland between the bottom of Leaping Lizard and Karori Stream.

Planting goes from 10am to 12:30pm each Saturday through to the 8th August. Tools and planting tips provided. No experience necessary.

Check out the event listings for more info.

We’re thrilled to announce the Drury Family has decided to make a $50,000 annual donation to the Makara Peak Supporters for the next 3 years.

This funding is going to make a huge difference to the park, and we're stoked that Rod shares our vision for Makara Peak being a world class bike park.

In making the donation Rod Drury said “I’m super impressed by the massive effort put in by countless volunteers over many years to create world class mountain bike tracks uniquely close to the Wellington city.

As part of making Wellington an even better place to work, live and visit, and with the necessary focus on domestic tourism, it feels important to accelerate our plans for biking in Wellington".

Having a trail network that rides well in all conditions has always been important to us. As mountain biking gets more popular we need to invest in maintaining the trails we have, as well as building new and exciting ones.

So we'll be using this money to upgrade our maintenance programme, with high use tracks like Peak Flow, Smokin, SWIGG and Lazy Fern getting resurfaced and in some cases rebuilt with the help of contractors and machines.

This is part of a wider vision for further investment in trails around the region that we've been working on with Wellington Mountain Bike Club, Wellington Trails Trust and Brooklyn Trail Builders.

If any other entities or corporates would like to get involved we’d love to hear from you. Donations of all sizes make a difference. As a registered charity we can provide you with a receipt for your donation, so send us a DM or drop us an email at supporters@makarapeak.org.

The conversion of T3 from a grade 4 “technical torture trail”, to a grade 3 (intermediate) climbing trail is complete and was opened late this afternoon.

Given the trail has been completely re-purposed, we also decided a new name is in order. T4 (trail to the top) is a nod to the original idea behind T3, while reflecting the fact it’s now a climbing trail that will eventually link the water tank at the bottom of Varleys with the summit of Makara Peak.

As part of this change, we’re also opening another new section of trail that links the summit to North Face/Trickle Falls, and changing a couple of other trails around the summit. Check out the map below if you prefer a picture, but in summary:

1. Zac’s Track and North Face both start at the summit and share the first 70-odd metres before North Face splits right and back down towards Trickle Falls. This new section of trail, built by Trailpro and paid for by WCC, is a much more direct and interesting way of getting to Trickle Falls, Yeah Gnar or continuing on North Face.

2. Zac’s Track is now one way, downhill only. If you want to get one final climb up Zac’s, just watch out for more riders heading downhill towards T4.

3. T4 (previously T3) continues up what used to be the start of North Face.

4. A2Z becomes two way. Riders coming up T4 continue along A2Z to get to the summit via the recently opened final section of Aratihi.

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This has all come together through funding from Wellington City Council and a lot of hard work from our contractors TGL and Trailpro.

TGL and WCC put in a massive surfacing effort on T4 last week with the help of a helicopter to distribute gravel over the length of the trail, which has been setting for the last week. What would normally take a week was done in the better part of a day and a bit.

T3's days as a technical torture trail are over. As part of the 10 year master plan for the park, T3 is being replaced with a new grade 3 climb from the top of Varley's. Most of the hard work has been done by TGL, with surfacing work underway and an opening date to be confirmed in the next few weeks.

Views from Varley’s out towards Makara Beach on a still autumn evening.

This is the first stage of a series of changes and improvements to the northern end of the park. These are designed to increase use, provide riders of varying skill levels and fitness with different options. Ultimately there will be short and long grade 3 loops, with harder tracks for more advanced riders.

Over the next few years, we’ll be working with WCC on the following projects:

1. Zac's being rebuilt and changed to downhill only (winter 2020). Combined with T3 this will create a new short loop in the north end similar to Upper Leaping Lizard which has been super popular since it was opened.

2. A new grade 3 climbing track from the water tank at the bottom of Varley’s up the northern ridge to the bottom of T3 (starting in mid-late 2020).

3. A new bit of track to take riders from Zac's down to Varley’s, and then an overhaul and upgrade of Varley’s (2021)

4. New G4 track from the top of Trickle Falls down to the water tank at the bottom of Varley's (best guess 2022).

Next time you’re in the park, check out our amazing new mural at the main entrance - it’s on the back of the shelter. Thanks to the very talented Miro Kennett, who put in many hours of hard work bringing this creation to life!

Due to a large slip during a storm during the COVID-19 lock down, the end section of Sally Alley is now closed to everyone. The slip is still moving, so it’s not a safe area, so please stay out. We’re working with WCC, but it looks like it could take 6 months to fix it.

Sally Alley is open as far as the drop in from Snake Charmer 4WD where you’ll come across a substantial orange fence. Turn right up the drop in and continue on your way.

Sally Alley is closed from the Snake Charmer connector onwards due to a massive slip.

To make it easier to get to Upswing and the Summit we’ve temporarily reversed Three Brothers Part 1. It’s now a downhill track, just not designed as one so watch out on the corners.

How to get to the summit:

After you exit Sally Alley and trundle up Snake Charmer, keep going up past Tower 18 Connector. Where Three Brothers crosses Snake Charmer you can now head left and down to Upswing.

Once Transpower have finished painting the powerlines you’ll be able to continue down to Missing Link.

If you’re one of the few brave people who ride up Missing Link (yes it’s two way people!) then you’ll have to ride up Tower 18 Connector, hook left onto Snake Charmer and then down to Upswing.

If you’d like a map check out https://www.trailforks.com/trails/three-brothers-part-1/