Otematata Wetlands Walk
22 Apr 2017
The Otago Community Trust was pleased to have provided support to the Otematata Residents Association Inc in February this year. The Trust donated $6,000 to the Residents Association to assist with the final stage of the Otematata Wetlands Walk. The Otematata Wetlands Walkway is situated between the shores of Lake Aviemore and Loch Laird Rd and its success is testament to great community grunt and vision.
The Wetlands Walkway is the product of many thousands of hours of hard graft by hundreds of volunteers. The idea was born about 10 years ago, when a group of volunteers decided to make something of the virtual no-man’s land left behind at Loch Laird. The lakeside strip that had been a hub of dam construction, the site of gravel pits and an airstrip, was becoming virtually inaccessible, overgrown with bramble, bracken, gorse and broom, swampy at times with heavy natural run-off from the surrounding hills.
In 2010 Otematata residents and volunteers got really "stuck in" and began transforming the area for the good of the community. A grant from Meridian Energy's Waitaki Community Fund enabled the group to employ Wanaka Landscape architect Anne Steven who drew up a landscape management plan and set down the group’s “vision” on paper. It is from this point in time that the Otematata Wetlands Walk began to transform.
To learn more about how the Otematata Wetlands Walk came to be and the key people behind this community project, click through to this great feature article published by the ODT in 2016. "Walkway product of vision hard graft"