Hadley Dryden: Destination Hauraki Coromandel GM on the financial boost to reopen the Cathedral Cove track

A business owner says after a tough period, money to re-open the Coromandel Peninsula's Cathedral Cove track is great news.  

The Government's allocated $5 million to plan, build, reopen, and maintain the walking track.  

The beach has been inaccessible by land since February 2023 after Cyclone Gabrielle.  

Destination Hauraki Coromandel General Manager Hadley Dryden told Andrew Dickens it's their biggest attraction.  

He says it has a lot of pulling power for the region and the country, so it's important it's back for summer. 

LISTEN ABOVE 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Great news. The best beach of the world, Cathedral Cove.
You can get to the sea, you can get there.
Its walking access will be restored before summer. It's been
closed since Side Cone Gabriel and the government's given five
million dollars for a short term fix. So the general
manager of Destination Hodaki Coramandel is Hadley Dryden, who must

(00:20):
be a happy man. Hello Hadley, morning, Andrew.

Speaker 2 (00:23):
Yeah, we're pretty happy here in the current mandle. That's
great news.

Speaker 1 (00:26):
What's it been now that it's been closed?

Speaker 2 (00:29):
Part of me?

Speaker 1 (00:30):
How long has it been that it's been closed.

Speaker 2 (00:33):
Oh, it's been closed since the events in Gabriel.

Speaker 1 (00:36):
So I'm just we didn't do the month count up,
but there we go. It's a long long time and
that was a big, big beach. It's your biggest attraction.

Speaker 2 (00:46):
Yeah, and it's not far from the likes of hot
Water Beach and of course the community of Fatianga as well,
So there's a lot of polling power that Cathedral Cove
has for the whole of the region and and in
fact New Zealand to an extent as well. It's a
bit of a trial for the country, so it's pretty
important that it's back for the summer.

Speaker 1 (01:05):
So run us through the fix. It's only five million
dollars and it's only temporary.

Speaker 2 (01:11):
Yeah, I think at the moment it's a case of
we'll take what we can get and we'll support the
process in terms of delivering what we can for this
summer and hopefully building an experience that is even better
than what it was going forward.

Speaker 1 (01:27):
Okay, so it will be good enough to walk. I've
done this walk in a number of times, you know.
I love the walk, and it's beautiful and it's one
of the easiest walks because it's all sealed, you know.
But then I saw with the damage, you know, there's
a lot of stairs that actually fell down. How would
you like it improved?

Speaker 2 (01:42):
I think it's well, it was a little bit like
the yellow brick road, so really easy access for most people,
but obviously a little bit challenging with the pieces that
were blowing out in the storm. But I think it's
about the overall experience. It's improved, so from a destination
management perspective, how it benefits the community, the wider environment,

(02:06):
and if there's any other additional parts that can be
locked out to extend the experience. Even so, during the
last summer that we did have there was two Party Point,
which is at the southern end of Hajei that was
opened up and promoted as a walkway, and you see
streams of visitors walking to that that point as well.

(02:30):
So there's potential to try and encourage people to stay
a little bit longer and help support the community a
little bit more so and.

Speaker 1 (02:40):
Walk a little bit further. One of the things about
the damage into Cathedral Cove is of course the roof
of the actual arch that you could walk through between
the two beaches. The roof had come down, you know,
So will we be able to go through that arch
or is that now forbidden because of the risk and
is it going to be too difficult to stabilize the roof.

Speaker 2 (02:59):
Yeah, it's too early to say from my perspective, and
department the Conservation will obviously be looking at that closely,
but I think it's only periodically where there's a rock
fall from the archway, So it might be that they
just close it intimittently depending on the weather. And you know,

(03:21):
people as it is are still taking a chance and
will wander through anyway, even if they've had access through
by the boat. So I think we have to be
pretty pragmatic about the response there too, very good and also.

Speaker 1 (03:36):
What else does you want done on the Coromandle I
can tell you the roads are terrible. I mean they
always have been before twenty five A went down. I
mean you've got one lane bridges all over the place,
You've got them in Titler, You've got them everywhere and
they hold up everything. Is there any talk of more
investment into this area because more and more people are
living there permanently too.

Speaker 2 (03:54):
Yeah, the local council, it's fair to say that's their
number one priority. For many who visit the Amanda Lost
and the roads that are pretty much back to a
good space. But when you look a little bit closer,
the resilience of the network is still it requires a
lot of upgrades and protection so we don't have to

(04:16):
go through what we did to the same extent with
State High twenty five A for example. So there's a
huge amount of work and advocacy that's going into fixing
up the roads so we're more resilient in the future.
And the Coromanal Ferry, that's probably another one that you
know we've suffered through COVID. The ferry to Auckland stopped

(04:37):
and we had the cove and the road blowout. So
we've had a bit of a rough time here in
the Coromandal. So I think any support that we can get,
whether it's through the COVID, the ferry or most definitely
the roads, we're certainly chasing that.

Speaker 1 (04:54):
Well, good on your Handley, Congratulations and good luck and
thank you so much for your time. Hadley Driden from
How They Can Coremandle Promotions. For more from the Mic
Asking Breakfast, listen live to News Talk Set B from
six am weekdays, or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio