News

100 Jobs at Christchurch Adventure Park

The southern hemisphere's biggest adventure park, being built in Christchurch's Port Hills, is on the lookout for more than 100 staff for its opening in December.

Work will start in August to find the full-time and part-time staff, a park spokeswoman said. Trail designers and a human resources and event manager have already been hired.

Work began on the $20 million park – located on 358 hectares of forested land between Dyers Pass, Worsleys and Summit roads – in March and was on track to open in December.

The park would include more than 100 kilometres of downhill mountain bike routes, a 1.8km chairlift capable of taking up to 1200 riders and their bikes up 435 vertical metres each hour, zip lines through the forest, rock climbing and a cafe and bar seating up to 180 people.

Five lodges and 14 cottages, accommodating 252 people, and a mountain coaster would be built within two or three years.

Fourteen chairlift towers were being shipped from Austria and the first towers were expected to be erected in September. The tower foundations were being prepared and helicopters used to transport concrete to areas trucks could not access.

Construction of the village had started and buildings including the ticketing office, bike shop and cafe were due to be finished in October, the spokeswoman said.

The coaching trails and upper trails had been designed and trail builders were working on other trails already established in the area to bring them up to the same level as the machine-built ones.

The zip line tour had been designed and included dual zip lines so visitors could experience it with a friend or partner. There would be four legs to the tour, with one of the legs about 1km long.