Boost for backpackers

Ruapehu Bulletin, Volume 10, Issue 458, 20 October 1992, Page 14

Boost for backpackers

Ohakune's latest landmark, the Alpine Motel Back-Packers Hostel will provide a major boost to budget accommodation in the Central Plateau, accord-, ing to the hostcl's owners. The 45-bed purposebuild hostel will provide much-needed accommodation in the region for the thriving back-pack tourist trade. The owners of Ohakune's Alpine Motel, Larry Julius, his wife Cheryl and their partner Greg Quick wanted a back-packers hostel erected on a site adjacent to their motel to capitalise on the rapidly growing back-packing tourism trade and they wanted it as quickly as possible, preferably in six weeks, to catch the August holiday trade. Despite some of the worst weather in memory, a Papakura construction company, Econo Built Systems Ltd, had the building finished in early September, meeting the six-week deadline. At the beginning of the project, Econo Built's workmen were literally working in snow. The distinctivelyshaped arch building has 13 bedrooms, three showers and toilets downstairs and two showers and toilets upstairs as well as a kitchen, a lounge, four sundecks and a specious communal area.

Mr Quick said the concept of the back-packers hostel was to take pressure off the Alpine Motel which had part of its winter accommodation allocated to Kiwi Experience, New Zealand's major back-packers touring bus company. For the past three years the Alpine had taken Kiwi Experience 's passengers in the motel at a reduced rate. "But with the burgeoning popularity of backpacking we needed to provide something more suited to the back-pack-ers' needs," said Mr Quick. "We were asking a lot. It was quite a demanding

assignment. We wanted a purpose-build building, we had a limited budget and we wanted it up in a hurry, but fortunately Econo Build met all the criteria." Mr Quick said the decision to go with an arch construction came from someone recalling a similar concept at Taupo. Larry Julius rang the owner of that building who referred him to Mark Williams, the Managing Director of Econo Built Systems. Unfortunately, construction began during the worst weather in Ohakune's history, said Mr Quick. "Whereas we normally

only get three or four days snow a year, we had five days snow in one week," he said. "When it wasn't snowing, it was raining hard and the ground was a sea of mud. "It was a tremendous effort by the Econo Built carpenters to work in that weather to have the building finished within six weeks and open in time to get the second week of the August holiday trade." The building is the first project using a specially patented construction technique which eliminates many of the construction problems associated with residential arch buildings.