‘Woman, you need to get paid!’ – A Tireless Volunteer

Maybe it’s her resourceful rural upbringing, or just that schoolteacher instilled within her, but give Janeen Wood an insurmountable challenge to overcome and you can be sure she’ll see it through.

Now chief executive of Southern Lakes Trails, Janeen is first to confess that when she first found herself as a volunteer trying to develop a cycle trail network linking Cromwell and Clyde, she didn’t even own a bike.

Fast forward almost 10 years and after a mountain of negotiating, obtaining consents and meeting requirements she’s been at the forefront of developing what is now a remarkable, extensive network of bike trails connecting the entire Central Otago region.

Middle of construction of the Lake Dunstan Trail

Ever since Janeen and second husband David moved to Cromwell to buy their motorcycle hire business in 2006 her corporate management, teaching, environmental stewardship, health and safety and organisational skills have been in hot demand. Word quickly got out that she was a woman who gets the job done, and all but the last three years of Janeen’s trail development work has been voluntary.

Even now at 65 she says she won’t be leaving until the last of the staged trail work is complete. While she may now own an electric bike, Janeen confesses that she’s just too busy developing the trails to get out and ride them! “I’d love to be on my bike more.”

Lake Dunstan Trail Opening with Susan Findlay and unknown children

From trail development, Cromwell and Districts Community Trust and its clean up group, to Cromwell Promotions Group and secretary-treasurer of the Bannockburn Indoor Bowling Club - winner of four Central Otago Championship gold bars, Janeen’s not finished that task yet either. “I’m hoping to earn a fifth this year to get a gold star,” she says. In her ‘spare time’ Janeen manages to organise and bring supper to the club’s weekly games nights, run raffles and keep tallies.

Raised in Southland, initially on a Waianiwa farm then in Invercargill, Janeen became a championship runner joining the Invercargill Harriers Club, where her dad was a keen member. “There were no junior girls, so I had to run with the Junior Colts (boys) which they didn’t like,” she grins. As life would turn out the boy who got second ahead of her in her race became her second husband years later.

Janeen’s always held her own among the boys, working as a quality controller at Bluff’s Ocean Beach Freezing Works in her uni holidays. “I earned twice there what I earned teaching with my four years training to save for overseas travel.” It was gory work, surveying sheep’s heads, ensuring the brains were clean and safe for export. Here health and safety also became her thing.

The Blind Date – Shell Ball 1996 with David Moreton

Accepted for Dunedin Teacher’s College at just 16, Janeen was among the first intake to complete a full Bachelor of Education, graduating in 1980 and teaching in Paraparaumu then Otatuau.

In 1982 she married her Aussie first husband, and they travelled extensively across Asia, Europe, Africa and North America, trekking four Nepalese passes on a huge adventure to Everest Base Camp.

Janeen then taught in Sydney while her husband studied. “I was so innocent, a naïve Southlander. When a kid came to me one break, I thought he said ‘Miss, there’s a bomb!’ He was actually saying a ‘bong’,” Janeen laughs.

In Sydney she landed work with a retired David Jones senior manager, managing his daughter’s new art screen-printing business, working with top Aussie creatives like designer Jenny Kee on production and project coordination.

Separated and back in Wellington in 1998, Janeen turned her quality control skills to Exide Batteries, gaining valuable health and safety, environmental consent and union negotiation skills for nine years. Within six months of starting there she’d been sent to Melbourne Business College and on to Hong Kong and China to upskill.

Milford Track 2023

Jacked up as partner to her sister’s workmate at Shell, Janeen fell in love with her second ‘David’ and instantly became stepmum to three wonderful boys. “I then stayed home for a year and also looked after my two nephews while their mum went back to work.”

She soon worked for Shell too, on its distribution team auditing petrol delivery and site managing a major demolition and rebuild of the Lyttleton fuel storage tanks.

“David said one day, ‘Do you fancy moving to Cromwell and owning a motorcycle business?’” They set up a B&B on the property and almost 20 years on both businesses are steady with 95% of the motorcycle clients from overseas. “We live in Paradise with Milford, Haast, the Lindis to Mount Cook all at our doorstep and motorcycle enthusiasts just want to get out on our roads.”

In Cromwell Janeen’s corporate experience soon saw her ‘nabbed’ for various community groups. “When in the corporate world I never had time to volunteer for community work.” The first of the Cromwell Community Plans required a group with a formal structure and governance. Janeen became secretary of the Cromwell and Districts Community Trust for over 10 years, still a trustee. One of the tasks was to investigate the feasibility of a Cromwell to Clyde cycle trail, which she’s stuck with, helping set up yet another trust.

Africa 1984

“Fundraising expert Kaye Parker from Queenstown suggested that we combine the trails trusts in the region and create a connective network so that we had a better chance of funding,” Janeen says. “Kaye was a huge help. Our biggest supporters were Central Lakes Trust and Otago Community Trust. Through them we raised over $13m and could then go to the government to match that to the necessary $26.3m.”

However, former Prime Minister John Key, who’d promised the money in May 2016, lost the election. “We had to present a whole new business case for the network which Treasury didn’t sign off until 2018.”

Now named Southern Lakes Trails Trust, they’ve completed that first trail, the highly successful Lake Dunstan Trail, which opened in 2021. “We’ve started construction of the Kawarau Gorge Trail linking Gibbston and Bannockburn and are negotiating with landowners on the 13km gap in the Roxburgh Gorge Trail,” Janeen says.

The Lake Dunstan Trail was expected to attract 7000 people but quickly rose to 10,000, clocking 84,000 in the first year. “It’s been a huge success.”

At the same time Janeen also instigated 10 years of regular lakeside community clean-up days around the Cromwell foreshore, co-ordinating these with Lions, Rotary, other groups and the public.

She was somehow convinced to join Cromwell Promotions too, a group she chaired for three years. It wasn’t until Kaye said: ‘Woman, you need to get paid!’, that Janeen accepted a full-time paid role as chief executive three years ago after many years of voluntary hard slog.

Dad and I in our running days 1972 – I must have won that trophy. My Dad, my hero.

Until then her paid work during tourist off-seasons had been in vineyards and for Highlands Motorsport Park, overseeing health and safety during construction and coordinating voluntary groups for major events for five years.

Janeen’s not ready to stop yet with more missions to complete. The community trust is now working on re-establishing the Chinese Settlement at Old Cromwell. “We’ve been fundraising and we’re about to start construction. It’s so exciting to see these things happening and be part of enhancing our community,” she says.

While her bike and travel have to wait with family a priority right now, Janeen did walk the Milford Track in January last year and loves her indoor bowls, that gold bar the next goal set firmly in her sights.