The bridge will cost around $700,000. Photo / Frame Group
Construction of a 120-metre suspension bridge more than 10 years in the making will begin next month.
Part of the 3000km Te Araroa Trail, it will cross the Whangaehu River near its mouth at the Tasman Sea, allowing people to follow the coast from Whanganui instead of traversing 32km of road.
At present, walkers heading from Whanganui to Bulls must use Portal St, No 2 Line, Warrengate Rd, SH3 and Whangaehu Beach Rd before the trail heads off-road again.
Te Araroa Trust chief executive Matt Claridge said contractor Abseil Access would begin work in the first or second week of April.
The trust launched a fundraising drive for the $700,000 project in February last year, with around $200,000 still required.
By November, that figure had shrunk to $60,000.
Claridge said the JBS Duddings Trust had “closed out” the funding gap.
“Developing the trail is all about improving the walking experience and connecting community, and this investment develops on both of those,” he said.
Abseil Access bridge division general manager Martin Wilson said the bridge would be three metres above the water, “way out of the flood zone”.
“We were pretty keen to help the Te Araroa Trust with this one,” he said.
“It has twin cables on each side, which are a spiral strand and high tensile, so they’re really strong.
“As it’s a walking bridge, it’s only around a metre wide.”
He said the company had built 118 bridges since 2006, including across the Manganui Gorge on Mt Taranaki.
That project won the Category 1 prize for projects up to $2M prize at the 2024 Civil Contractors New Zealand Hirepool Construction Excellence Awards.
“We’re currently doing a bridge across the Hooker River down at Mt Cook, and we got another award for a bridge on the Lake Dunstan Trail near Cromwell,” Wilson said.
When the bridge is built, part of the trail will run through land owned by Rakautaua 9 Ahu Whenua Trust and farmer Rob Craig.
In 2015, then-Te Araroa chief executive Rob Wakelin went to Whanganui to meet landowners and local authorities about the trail going through the area, and said he “walked away with a feeling of support from everyone else involved”.
At the time, the bridge was costed at $150,000.
Rakautaua 9 Ahu Whenua Trust chair Casey Paki told the Chronicle this week the trust and Craig had supported the project since the beginning.
“It’s about sharing what we have with others”, he said.
“Me and by brother have actually been out there this week doing a whole lot of landscaping work, just to make it friendlier for people who want to come out.”
Paki said he had heard of walkers taking buses between Whanganui and Palmerston North to bypass the road section of the trial.
“With the bridge going in, we’re envisaging a lot more people coming out and having a look around.”
Te Araroa Whanganui trust chair and long-time bridge advocate Brian Doughty said he was “over the bloody moon” that it was being built.
“If you give up halfway through, you should never have started, he said.
“It’s been a long haul, but it’s been worth it, and it’s going to make a big difference.
“People will be off that bad stretch of road. Down the [Whanganui] river, down the coast.”
Claridge said the trust wanted to build the number of New Zealanders on the trail, or on parts of it.
“This walk can be a mini Te Araroa, from Whanganui to Palmerston North,” he said.
“There is so much variety there - you’ve got the Whitiau Scientific Reserve, the beach, a river mouth crossing with the Turakina (River), and you’ve got Santoft Forest.”
Mike Tweed is a multimedia journalist at the Whanganui Chronicle. Since starting in March 2020, he has dabbled in everything from sport to music. At present his focus is local government, primarily Whanganui District Council.