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As well as huts, tracks and trails the Outdoor Recreation Consortium can fund 4WD opportunities. Steve Kernot reports from an Outdoor Recreation Consortium funded project on Ngaroma road in the Kingcountry, full report here: king-country-4wd-club

Over the past 11 years the King Country 4WD Club have worked with DoC to develop a 4WD park in the Pureora Forest Park. This partnership has worked well and as the road needed work DoC repaired it and we assisted where we could with weed spraying and pot hole repairs. Unfortunately, due to money constraints and increased usage of the 4WD Park the road had deteriorated to a dangerous level. We were having Club members with blow-outs, wheels damaged and trailers shaken apart from dragging off-roaders in and out of the block.

We organised working bees to repair pot holes and to cut back growth and windfalls along the road but the roading metal was not up to the traffic.
With the repairs that have been completed on the road and the new metal laid this should allow us a smoother ride in and allow cars to use the road that was more a 4WD track.

The KC4WD Club has run fundraising activities taking rides for Scouts and Venturers to raise money for ongoing maintenance of the block. The NZ4WD Association has allocated $2500 to match our $2500 to enable us to get a machine in to repair and drain the 4WD tracks over summer. The KC4WD Club has just approved $1000 donation for DoC to help towards the cost of the roadside mowing on the newly repaired Ngaroma Road. I have just spoken to Marty at DoC and made an undertaking to help with vegetation control on the roadside after this is completed. The KC4WD Club has completed spraying and trimming back of the roadside before the roadworks we started to protect the paint jobs, lights and mirrors of the trucks working on the road repairs.

The King Country 4WD Club would like to thank the Outdoor Recreation Consortium for the opportunity to help with this venture and hope we can work with you in the future.