Downhill adventures for diversifying farmers

A new mountain bike park has the run of the hills at Rick and Julia King's farm at Clarence near Kaikōura.

Middle Hill MTB is the brainchild of their daughter Genevieve.

It has replaced the Kings' Merino sheep and cattle at Middle Hill Station. But it's not all that's changed.

The fertile flats used to fatten the livestock, now 60 hectares of vines follow the contours of the mighty Clarence River.

Their son Will, who builds boats in Christchurch, is involved in the development of the large vineyard.

The first grape harvest will happen in 2024 and it couldn't come sooner for Rick.

"Now we're waiting for an income, to start paying it back!" he jokes.

It's a big shift for the lifelong farmers.

Rick's father bought the 3200-ha property in 1964 and Rick took it over in 1985, running livestock until two years ago.

"This is a whole new way of farming for me!" he admits, but hopes they'll soon be toasting what has been a challenging ride.

After going through the tenure review process the King's farm shrank to 520 hectares after most of the backcountry was retired.

Tenure review is a voluntary process that provides an opportunity for farmers to gain freehold title to part of their leasehold land and for some of the land to be restored to full Crown ownership.

"We had less land to run livestock on so we had to think about diversifying into something that was going to provide for three families," he says.

This is when the farm succession planning began.

After much discussion, an arrangement was put in place to fit in with everyone's goals.

"We had to sub-divide to make the whole thing work. So the grapes are in one block, Ju and I have got our own little block, and Genevieve and her partner Morgan have got their block," Rick says.

It's a dream come true for Genevieve who has always been passionate about adventure sports.

She started building a mountain bike trail along a scenic ridgeline back in 2016 but admits she didn't really know what she was doing.

"And then I met my partner Morgan who is a trail-builder and the rest is history really," she says.

They've spent countless weeks on the hill; scoping, clearing, building and tweaking the ever-expanding collection of trails.

"It was just Morgz and me. I was on the chainsaw clearing ahead of him and he was on the digger."

"It's definitely been a labour of love! You wouldn't want to add up the hours we spent building trails and expect to get paid off, yet!

Now, intrepid mountain bikers can weave their way down at least 20 kilometres of hair-raising tracks.

And then Morgan takes them up again for another adrenalin rush.

Around the time when the MTB park first opened, the couple also had their first child.

"I'm looking forward to Sienna being a bit bigger so she can come toddling out with us," Genevieve says.

"This will be part of her life growing up just like it was for me growing up, tagging along with Dad."