Cardrona River Bridge & Clutha River Track
The Cardrona River bridge at Albert Town was placed over the river on Wednesday 7th October. The bridge forms a vital part of the Clutha River Track running from Albert Town to near the Red Bridge in Luggate, and has been under construction for the last month. The track will form part of the Clutha Mata-Au River Parkway project which will eventually create a track along the Clutha River from Lake Wanaka to the Sea.
The Clutha River Track was planned at the same time as the Hawea River Track, but the Trust focused on completing the Hawea River Track before starting construction on the Clutha River Track.
The construction of the bridge has been greatly assisted by a very generous donation of $25,000 from Meg Taylor, owner of the nearby Riverrun luxury lodge and farm. Meg is the widow of John Pawson, the first chair of the Trust who died last November in a tragic climbing accident, and the bridge will be named in his memory.
The Track will follow the true right of the Clutha River from Albert Town and this section will finish on Short Cut Road near the Red Bridge, where the Department of Conservation has built a carpark. Two sections of the track have already been marked and opened by the Department of Conservation at a simple marked route standard.
The first of these is the section between the end of Stevensons Road, just west of Wanaka Airport, to near the west end of Short Cut Road near Luggate.
This section was assisted by an adjoining landowner Lloyd Ferguson who formed a long section of the track, and by the Clutha Fisheries Trust who had raised funds to mark and fence paper road access to the Clutha River which forms part of this track.
The other section already opened is a continuation of the track round Rekos Point and back to the Short Cut Road access point.
The Trust hope to be able to upgrade these sections of track to make them easier to cycle once the miussing sections of the track have been completed.
The missing sections are between Albert Town and Stevensons Road, and are through the Haliday Bluffs just downstream from Albert Town. This section is the most challenging section of the track to build and it is currently being tendered,
The other missing section is from the Rekos Point track to the new carpark on Short Cut Rd near the Red Bridge and Luggate.
The Trust is also working on extending the Clutha River Track on to the Devils Nook, and up Luggate Creek to the Luggate Township.
