A view of Levin, Lake Horowhenua and the Tasman Sea from the top of the Trig Road lookout.
A view of Levin, Lake Horowhenua and the Tasman Sea from the top of the Trig Road lookout.
A hugely popular walkway through privately-owned forestry land directly east of Levin will temporarily close soon as the trees are ready for harvest.
Trig walkway was massively popular with the public with an estimated 2000 people walking or biking the track each week during the height of summer. Stunning viewsof the coastline await anyone who gets to the top.
Harvesting of the 94-hectare block will start on January 9, 2023, and is scheduled to take 18 months. When the forest block had been completely cleared, around mid-2024, the walkway would reopen to walkers and cyclists again.
There is alternative access to the top of Trig through the Grey Bush Track on Gladstone Road while Trig Road is closed for logging.
The Kohitere Forest block was owned by Australian company Norsewood Estate Limited and had been managed by New Zealand company Forest Enterprises since 2019, who were responsible for forest health, access, and harvest operations.
Forest Enterprises were providing the public with an alternative walking track while the Trig Road block was closed. It had built a walking track on the other side of the hill so the public could maintain access to the Trig summit, with car parking available at the entrance to the track on Gladstone Road.
Forest Enterprises operations manager Chris Hawthorn was onsite at the Grey Bush Track this week and on the tools himself, helping clear bush in anticipation of the public accessing the route when Trig Road closed.
A couple of young trampers walk up the popular Trig track from the Denton Road entrance.
He said the company was aware of the popularity of the Trig Road and wanted to do what it could to ensure there was an alternative available to the public during the necessary routine harvest.
“It’s quite a nice walk - a bit steep at the start so you need some decent footwear - but it levels off and goes through some native bush. It’s less convenient, but it’s a nice walk,” he said.
The Trig Road block was originally planted in pinus radiata by residents of the Kohitere boys home several decades ago. That crop was harvested in 1992 and replanted, and now that crop was ready for harvest.
The crop rotation cycle was about every 28 years. The next generation of trees was being carefully sourced from seed in Rotorua and being raised in Woodville at Murray’s Nurseries.
Forest Enterprises operations manager Chris Hawthorn clears some scrub near the sign of the Grey Bush Track walk.
Once ready for planting the new trees would be spaced out at 1000 stems per hectare. After a few years there would be thinning of non-performing trees to almost half that number, with the remainder left to fully mature.
Hawthorn said the targeted yield was 750 tonnes per hectare. Each tree weighed an average of 1.67 tonne. At least 70 per cent of the trees would be processed by local company Mitchpine, with the rest likely to go offshore.
He said most of the trees were pinus radiata, although there was a very small number of Douglas fir planted in 1964 that would also be harvested. The block would then be replanted with the next generation of trees the following winter, at a rate of 2000 young trees per week.
A sign at the entrance to the Grey Bush Track.
Hawthorn said when harvesting was finished the Trig Road Track would reopen to walkers and cyclists, and Forest Enterprises would look to work with Levin Mountain Biking Club to reinstate the existing mountain bike tracks that were expected to suffer some damage through harvesting.
The public was being asked to heed the closure for their own safety, and should also take care due to an increase in logging trucks near the area during the harvest period.
The Grey Bush Track would remain open after harvest.
