At the beginning of May, ACTEA received inquiries from local horse paddock agistees about the number of bikes they were encountering in the pine forest south of the National Zoo and Aquarium. There are several fire trails in this area, remnants of a much large forestry plantation that preceded the arrival of Zoo. They lead to the underpass into the Arboretum which was once the route of the Bicentennial National Trail. These days the BNT travels from the causeway west along the fire trail parallel to the Molonglo River.
On closer inquiry and inspection it transpired that the Kowalski Brothers, a volunteer MTB trail building group responsible for bike trails at Kowan Forest and Majura Pines, had constructed 5 MTB tracks across the entire pines area between the River and the underpass, several of them crossing internal fire trails or terminating on the BNT route. Signs saying ‘no horses’ were affixed to pine trees on these routes. Kowalskis later claimed that they hadn’t seen any sign of horses using the area and any way horses had to share with bikes on the BNT.
ACTEA first contacted ACT Forests and were told that Kowalskis had sought permission to construct the trails but no one had given any thought to other, existing, users of the area despite the horse trail signs. After being provided with a copy of the UBD Street Directory showing the BNT route through the area and a copy of the government’s Memorandum of Understanding with the National Board of the BNT committing to consultation about matters likely to impact on the route in Canberra, ACTEA and Jenny Costin, the local BNT Coordinator, had several meetings with Peter Langdon, the Forestry Coordinator and Scott Seymour the senior Parks and Conservation Ranger for the southern region.
Thanks to the input from agistees at Curtin, Illoura and Yarralumla Paddocks, including useful maps produced by Mike McFadden and Keryn Kefous, ACTEA was able to reach a an agreement with the government agencies which included:
- give way to horses signage at the underpass
give way to horses signage and speed control designs (chicanes) at the intersections between the fire trails and the bike tracks
removal of MTB trail terminations off the BNT route along the River
a new bridle trail specifically for horse between the River and the underpass
plan to revive the old fire trail along the edge of the Parkway inside the ‘roo fence to provide additional horse riding
Ross from Illoura and Ineke and Greta from Curtin attended a site visit on Wednesday where all these mitigations were discussed with Allen Voight from Kowalskis. They will be responsible for cutting the new chicanes on the trails. The government has ordered the signs and we are told the work on the new bridle trail will start in a couple of weeks. With any luck all the work will be finished in about 4 weeks.
We need to get some additional signage on the causeway but that will require us to deal with another body altogether and we will do that as part of discussions about the Molonglo River Park.
Thank you to everyone who contributed to this outcome. The lesson here is, if you see anything that worries, you speak up asap!
