New 13th Apostle Backpackers owner Shane Dale says he hopes to revitalise Princetown

New 13^th Apostle Backpackers owner Shane Dale, who took over the Princetown business three weeks ago, said he was determined to put the town "back on the map".

"You come here and you think there's nothing on the go," he said.

"Weekends and holidays including Easter are just gangbusters but there's nothing here - you have to travel 20 minutes away.

"Our aim is to get everything back up and running and we hope that people in the area see us and think to themselves, 'let's have a crack ourselves'.

"I'm all for getting things moving and getting it cracking again."

Mr Dale, who has 14 years' experience in the accommodation business, said it would take about two months to upgrade his new purchase.

"We saw the opportunity and thought 'right, lets have a look and see what we can do'," he said.

"We thought we'd give it a go. The previous owners built it about 20 years ago and had it right from the start. Due to old age they decided to get out of it, they started to wind it back a bit and it wasn't a backpackers anymore.

"We've set it up as a backpackers again and we want to setup a general store with coffee and hot food in the next two weeks. We're also looking at a takeaway liquor licence in the next two months.

"We're well and truly getting there, hopefully things pick up accommodation-wise too. There's a lot of groups around Princetown including a walking group and there are bus companies contacting me too.

"They're all starting to kick off again and that's what we want to push a bit more around here."

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