Christchurch’s Adventure Park on the Port Hills reopened last summer with its chairlift, four Ziplines, café and most of its trails restored. But it has been largely denuded of its forest cover, which was extensively damaged in the February 2017 fires.
The McVicar family felt the loss more than most as it owns 3.75% of the adventure tourism business but all of the 358ha property, which has been leased to the $25 million park for the next 50 years.
The park received a boost when it was added to the Asia-Pacific Enduro Series for mountain bikers. This will be held in February next year and is expected to attract 200-300 hardcore bikers from around the world.
Now in its fourth generation of family ownership, the McVicar fortune has been derived primarily from forestry holdings, which are managed through the McVicar Timber Group. It supplies merchant and wholesale customers in New Zealand, Australia, Asia, Europe and North America.
Founded in 1949 by Neil McVicar, the group is managed by his great grandson John and employs about 200 staff at two sawmilling sites in Christchurch and Quirindi in northern New South Wales. It lost millions of dollars of pine plantations in the Christchurch fires but fortunately these were insured.