The Pan Pac MTB Park is my local bike park based in Eskdale – Hawke’s Bay, a 10 minute drive north of Napier heading towards Wairoa. It’s a large and well developed park with a good mix of trails to suit most riders, but there’s a bit of a climb to get in.
Check out a recent ride featuring highlights of some of the Mill Block trails.
The Pan Pac MTB park was originally established back in the early 2000’s (or was it late 90’s?) and was the first place that I really took a bike off-road.
Back then the park was a bit different, based in the Waipunga and Tait blocks on the Western side of the forest it was one of the largest MTB parks in the country as was (is?) the Hawke’s Bay Mountain Bike Club itself who are the stewards of the bike park.
The newer Replanted and Mill blocks weren’t developed until much later in the late 2010’s. In fact, I spent a few months in the Mill Block on a sabbatical hand digging Mint trail with a friend in 2014.
While the Waipunga and Tait blocks had a mix of technical single track and bike park style flow tracks, the newer Mill Block features more of the latter.
Eventually, as with all working forests, the Waipunga and Tait blocks were closed to MTB’s so it could be milled as yet we still don’t have access back into these blocks. When we do, I’ll be sure to upload another video.
