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Motatapu Track opens

• 05 Sep 2008

Canadian country singer Shania Twain stood by as Prime Minister Helen Clark and Te Araroa's Geoff Chapple opened the Motatapu Track last Thursday.

The 29-km track crosses the twin pastoral leases of Motatapu and Soho station, bought in 2004 by Shania and husband Mutt Lange. At that time, Te Araroa Trust was instrumental in persuading the Overseas Investment Commission to make the track easement a condition of sale. The Langes subsequently agreed to a route which stayed clear of farm operations. They paid for two huts en route, and track construction.

Chapple and a party of eight tramped the 3-day track just before Thursday's opening at the now-deserted Macetown.

"It's a tough track, and I'd recommend it to experienced trampers only right now," said Chapple at the opening. "It'll get tramped in as time goes by, but at the moment I'd compare it - if a musical analogy is in order given Shania's presence - to Indie rock. Demanding. A little rough in places, and like Indie Rock, inaccessible to some.

"But don't doubt that it's music. The track takes you through classic New Zealand high country. The sound of wind in the tussock. The silence of huge rock faces, sheep stringing away on the hills. Glimpses through to the Remarkables in the south and to Lake Wanaka in the north."

Gilbert Van Reenen

The crowd included children from Arrowtown school

Helen Clark welcomed the pupils of Arrowtown School to the opening, also Arrowtown and Queenstown residents who'd returned to the ghost town in period dress. She cut a ribbon of combined Te Araroa and Department of Conservation colours to open the new trail, an important connector in Te Araroa's north-south route. And then the autograph-hunting kids swarmed around Shania.

Gilbert van Reenen

Prime Minister Helen Clark cuts the ribbon to open the track