Select Contracts regional director Darron Charity said the company had spent the past 15 months undertaking due diligence and was ready to apply for a resource consent for a zipline at the harbour — but would spend the next six weeks getting responses from the community to find out if the tourism venture would be embraced. A zipline over the old quarry at Cape Wanbrow has been a talking point in Oamaru since the winter of 2015, but the original proposal to land the zipline on the historic breakwater was scrapped after a series of concerns were raised — including the abundant birdlife in the area, notably the rare Otago shag, which nests in large numbers on Sumpter Wharf.
"We would’ve liked to have gone that way, but obviously with the other sensitive areas in there, we’ve moved the line orientation completely," Mr Charity said.
"We’re coming over the very corner of the harbour and landing in Steampunk Park now. It’s quite a different route."
"I think there’s an equal, or a different product by going into Steampunk Park, because we can ... support the steampunk movement. And help to grow that product for the community."
The proposed 900m long dual-line zipline would launch from the top of Cape Wanbrow and land in possibly "an old rusty ship" as a piece of steampunk art to complement the Steampunk Playground at Friendly Bay and the other public art pieces in the area.
"The front of the boat could be anything we make of it — it could have cannons coming out, we want to do some really cool stuff," Mr Charity said.
But it would require a roughly 15m landing zone and the hull would also include a ticketing office.
The company had learned a lot about the area since first creating a business case.
"It’s been great. We’ve now done the ecological assessment and had our ecologist there and done the bird survey — so we have a pretty good view of what happens with the bird movements. It’s looking like there’s really minimal, if any, impact on them — it’s certainly not in their flight path.
"There might be some sort of noise, but these ziplines are really quiet."
Waitaki District Council property manager Renee Julius said while there was reserve land in the area, she understood the land Select Contracts was interested in was freehold.
University of Otago palaeoecologist Dr Nic Rawlence, who had been concerned by the initial proposal, said he would have to see more detailed plans, but was encouraged.
"They’ve listened to our concerns and they’ve changed their plan, which is fantastic. It’s a good-news story that we don’t actually often get."
