Brown Hill to get million-dollar mountain bike park
A “once-in-a-lifetime” mountain bike park will be built in Brown Hill following the passionate advocacy of 15-year-old Karl Lang. A prominent tour operator has called for more government investment.
A new mountain bike park will be created at Brown Hill, following the advocacy of 15-year-old mountain biker Karl Lang.
The South Australian government has given a $1 million grant to the Victor Harbor Council to acquire 50 hectares of land at Brown Hill for the park.
Environment Minister Lucy Hood said the now-secured site would offer challenging mountain bike trails without impacting the environment.
“The wheels are in motion to deliver a new and highly anticipated mountain bike park for residents and visitors to the Fleurieu,” Hood said.
“Hearing Karl speak at our Country Cabinet forum highlighted just how important this bike park will be for the local community. His passion to support young people get active is inspiring.”
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Lang said it was an “incredible learning experience for me to work with the state government and local council”.
“I would like to encourage other young people to get involved in shaping their communities. If they see a need, don’t whinge about it, push for change and don’t give up until you achieve what you hope to do,” he said.
Victor Harbor Council will now create a masterplan for the mountain bike park and will oversee works and manage the site once it is completed.
Mayor Dr Moira Jenkins said that “elements of the Victor Harbor Mountain Bike Park will be delivered within five years, along with public access to both walkers and Mountain Bike riders”.
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Ian Fehler, who has been running mountain bike tour operator Escapegoat Adventures for the past 18 years, welcomed the grant for a new bike park but called for more government investment in mountain biking.
“That sounds fantastic. A million is not a massive amount, but they should be able to get a fair few trails there,” he said.
“Anything like that is likely to have an impact, and certainly something like that would encourage people to be heading down to Victor, particularly South Australians, for a weekend or something like that – I would have thought it’d be excellent.”
Fehler, who has been mountain biking for more than 40 years, said it would be “brilliant” if more money were spent to develop trails around South Australia, saying that it would boost tourism in these regions.
“Adelaide does have some really good riding, but we don’t make it easy, and we’ve also, in the last 10 years, maybe not expanded or grown our trail network as well as other places,” he said.
“I know so many of the local South Australian riders who particularly go to Tasmania or Victoria for holidays because there is such great riding there, and it’s a shame that we have the terrain here, but we don’t invest in it, unfortunately.
“There are so many different examples worldwide and even within Australia of where you spend the money, you generate tourism and spending in a region that’ll be, 10, 20, ongoing, what you’ve spent.”
Fehler said that the best areas for mountain biking in South Australia include Fox Creek, Blackwood, Belair, Melrose and the Southern Flinders Ranges.
He said that the activity “is about being out in the environment and being out in nature”.
“There are so many different areas of mountain biking, depending on what you want, but the most important thing for me is being out in nature and being away from cars,” he said.
