New Riverside Walks Could make Kerikeri River a real Asset to the town.

The development of Bings Wood was inevitable, due to its strategic position in the town, but it has the possibility to enable greater access to the most beautiful section of the Kerikeri River.
At the moment most of the eucalyptus trees have been felled and the task of removing the stumps and preparing the site will shortly commence. There have been a number of outline proposals, which include traffic routes and some green recreational areas, but all slightly different and so the final plan does not seem to be settled yet.
Opening new wlkin tracks may require a substantial budget, and it would require a plan for the whole area which would include access from the town to the river and an esplanade walk along the river from the Golf Club bridge to Fairey pool and on down the Peacock Gardens reserve.

Parts in the various plans are constant such as the two streams or drainage gullies that run from the flat land near the Kerikeri Road down to the river, the riparian strip alongside the river and some form of through route that takes traffic from Homestead Road or Fairway Drive through the site, connecting to the ends of Clark St, King St and Redwoods Motel driveway and exiting onto the Heritage Bypass. Plus, of course some 350 houses.

​In Kerikeri we are blessed with a number of walking tracks which start at the Stone Store Heritage area and go upstream, one along the Wairoa stream, another is the Rainbow Falls track and the last is the Southside track, which is on the town side of the Kerikeri River of which part was an informal section through Bings Wood and went from the town down to Fairey Pool, an FNDC reserve. If you walk the full circle, it is an 8.2 kilometre walk never more than 1.5 Kilometres from the town centre, and this is promoted for the town in the Five Waterfalls leaflet and website https://www.kerikeriwalks.kiwi/ . These walks are very popular and help make Kerikeri such a pleasant place to live and visit as a tourist.

​Several Kerikeri volunteer groups have made the case for linking the town to the river through the site and the initial outline proposal had an excellent wide green strip, dividing the whole site in two and with a café on the riverside. Making use of the drainage streams to have walking tracks alongside them could be another suggestion and, of course, the riparian strip along the river from the Golf Club bridge down to Fairy pools would be a lovely walk as this is probably the most picturesque part of the river.
If you continue walking downstream along the river you pass under the Heritage Bypass bridge and then on to the Peacock gardens reserve and from there the route continues as an unadopted track through the DOC area and eventually reaches the Stone Store heritage area.
 This is a very substantial walking route and deserves some well signposted access from the town to the river.