Plateau Lodge shared The Pines - Waikune Forest - Ruapehu's post.

3 weeks ago

THIS IS THE NEWS WE’VE BEEN WAITING FOR!!! The local crew at The Pines have been working with Ruapehu District Council, The Ruapehu MTB Club, Bike Taupo, Land Information New Zealand, and New Zealand Forestry Managers to earn a ‘License To Occupy” for Waikune Forest. This has now been signed, sealed and delivered, which means that The Pines can now become an official Mountain Bike Park!!!

There have been trails coming and going in Waikune Forest for decades, built and ridden by locals, but with the huge increase in popularity it was necessary to become legitimate. The main reason for this is to protect the assets of the land owners and managers, as Waikune Forest is a working Pine forest and the trees are worth a lot of money. Did you know that if you are responsible for burning down the forest, you have to pay the replacement cost of the trees? So unless you have a spare few million dollars…

The easiest solution to this is the system used by many MTB Parks in New Zealand. In order to ride at The Pines you will now need to be a member of The Ruapehu MTB Club. This is basically for insurance purposes. The club is now affiliated with Cycling New Zealand, and they have an umbrella insurance policy that covers the members of affiliated clubs. This policy gives you $10,000,000 of Public Liability Insurance, and $1,000,000 of Rural Fire Fighting Insurance cover.

So you will now need to be a member of The Ruapehu MTB Club to ride at The Pines. This isn’t just to get insurance cover, you will actually be trespassing if you’re not a member. But don’t panic! It only costs $15 per year for membership of the club! That’s only 4 cents per day!

All of the work that has been done at The Pines up to now has been done by volunteers in their own time at their own cost. Now we can apply for funding to develop The Pines properly, so if you like the place now, well, we’re only just getting started!!! ... See MoreSee Less

Plateau Lodge

3 weeks ago

Lunch stop ... See MoreSee Less

Plateau Lodge

1 month ago

What we do on blue bird days ... See MoreSee Less