28 April 2012
Anzac Day had been and gone, and it was time to spruce up Great Expectations in preparation for some good autumn mountain biking.
The main focus was on track maintanence and upgrading sections that had deteriorated with time and use. This translated to a fair amount of track widening and clearing off-putting loose rocks from the track.
It wasn’t long before people’s attentions focussed in on one particular corner. The section where stage 1 of Great Expectations had jumped out on to the road, at the slip point was now more or less redundant. The slip had confirmed that, but more to the point, Great Expectations now continued in wide swoops right down to the valley. In future, the short-cut out to the road would be reinstated, but for now, the focus was on inproving the flow of the main track – Great Expectations.
Over two hours, four to six eager workers built up a sweet sweeping berm that would have cyclists spinning down and onwards without a pause.
At the same time, Paul Kilgour led a hardy group in planting out 50 totara around the sunny ridged area of the berm. This would lead the corner to be nicknamed Totara Berm, a name that would stick.