Once the site of gravel pits, overgrown and sometimes swampy, the Otematata Wetlands Walkway is testament to community grunt and vision, writes Ruth Grundy.
It isn't at all what you'd expect.
''When we first started people thought we were mad, then they started to see what was happening and, well, maybe we weren't so mad after all - it's the usual way,'' says Peter Kirk, the unofficial Otematata Wetlands Walkway manager.
''People get lost in here.''
Quite possibly this was exactly what those early walkway visionaries set about to create - a wilderness in which to lose yourself.
But I digress. We have found ourselves on the return journey of this winding story.
Instead, as the map says: you are here.
Graham Sullivan and I sit in the kitchen of his Otematata crib, originally one of many two-bedroom homes built to house workers constructing the Benmore Dam, and we rifle through old papers, photos and memories.
At the time, the dam was the biggest man-made structure in New Zealand and the largest earth dam in the southern hemisphere.
Otematata grew to 4166 people, had a shopping centre, a large number of sports clubs, primary and high schools and a hospital whose maternity wing recorded 179 births in 1964.
Graham first started travelling from his Waimate home to holiday in the Waitaki Valley 45 years ago, buying and settling into the crib 30 years ago.
Otematata is now very much home for the long-time Ahuriri Community Board chairman. He has just begun his fourth term on the board, the second as its chairman, but well before the advent of community boards he joined the Otematata Residents' Association.
It is hard to imagine that original group of resident volunteers had any idea of what they started when, back in the day, about 10 years ago, they decided to make something of the more than 50ha of no-man's land at Loch Laird at the head of Lake Aviemore, or of just how much work it would entail.
Graham is the only one of that original group still living in the town.
The lakeside strip was formerly a hub of dam construction, the site of gravel pits and an airstrip, and was becoming virtually inaccessible, overgrown with bramble, bracken, gorse and broom, swampy at times with heavy natural run-off from the surrounding hills.
''It was starting to annoy people,'' he says. ''It was 2010 when we got really stuck in.''
A grant from Meridian Energy's Waitaki Community Fund enabled them to employ Wanaka Landscape architect Anne Steven, who drew up a landscape management plan and set down the group's ''vision'' on paper.
They wanted to acknowledge the work of those who had gone before them, such as Department of Conservation staff, and also to heal the scars of construction, provide large lakeside areas for public enjoyment, and restore the wetlands to support wild-life and ''indigenous biodiversity'' - in short, ''create a beautiful area awaiting discovery''.
This plan gave the group a basis to apply for more and crucial funding. While no-one has sat down to do the sums, it is likely to be heading towards $300,000 to date, Graham says.
Over the years sorting out just who owns this piece of land has been problematic but in December 2011 the Waitaki District Council agreed to place it under the guardianship of the Otematata Residents Association.
We meet Vicky Munro at Otematata's West Road Cafe.
''As it started and we were raising funding for development I remember thinking at the time, this could be never-ending - just how long is a piece of string?'' she tells me over coffee.
Certainly, the project has managed to escape the confines of that original plan.
''We haven't really stuck to it,'' says Vicki, who also has generational links with the lakeside land.
She moved from Dunedin to Otematata about 60 years ago, settled into valley life and married Roualeyn ''Ronnie'' Munro, of the Munro family, of Rostreivor Run.
''I was here when there was nothing.''
But Loch Laird was to become an integral part of their children's lives.
The land at Loch Laird was part of that requisitioned from her late husband's family by the Government for hydro-electricity development under the Public Works Act.
Under that same Act it was supposed to have been returned to the families, but her mother-in-law said at the time she would not insist on its return provided it was always used for public recreation.
Ronnie was a staunch supporter of the wetlands project and a tireless volunteer, the Munro family contributing much of the machinery required to undertake the heavy lifting for the project.
Vicky's foremost contribution - and not to be underestimated - has been to try to wrangle loose the tangle of red tape wound tightly around the purse strings of funding parties.
Everything costs: signs, picnic tables, shingle, fencing, trees, pipework, the shopping list is long.
Most corporate donors require groups to show evidence of volunteer hours before funding will be released. Not only is it difficult to quantify the hours of graft but it can be difficult to give the application weight when the funds are not needed for the person hours but for the hire of a digger.
Vicky says over the years many have come to feel they have a stake in the project - locals and ex-pats alike.
''People still think of this as home.''
Many want to contribute and do so in their own way, with donations and thousands of person hours. Someone recently donated a container worth about $5000 to securely store equipment on site.
''We all have the same vision - not a park, a natural walkway; somewhere people can enjoy the natural environment.''
Over the years the group has received grants from many sources: Meridian Energy has contributed not only through its community fund but also through plantings made to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Benmore Dam; most recently, Environment Canterbury released $12,000 for materials and plants.
The Alps 2 Ocean Cycle Trail shares part of the walkway; Timaru's St Joseph's School held its camps in the town and its pupils have carried out extensive plantings.
Vicky says the vision is becoming reality.
''We used to see pukeko here in the '70s. Now they're coming back; there are bellbirds around here and they're spreading into the town, too.''
As our table is cleared Graham asks: ''So do you want to go now and take a look around? It'll take two or three hours. It's so big you can pass someone, say gidday and you don't see them again.''
We meet Peter down at the walkway entrance at Gravel Pit Camp Ground.
A relative newbie to the project, the former Quailburn Downs farm manager says he just wanted ''something to do to fill in time'', which it has done for the past five years.
The chat bounces back and forth as the four of us take to the tracks, me for the guided tour, the others to catch up on progress.
As they move from pondering the pressure of paperwork to revealing the scale of their achievements their faces shine with the enthusiasm that has driven this project from the start.
''Just look at the [grass] growth. We might need to get more sheep in.''
The group's to-do list is long:
there is the spraying, weed-eating, clearing, mulching, burning, digging, planting, making chicken-wire protectors for the young plants, fencing, rolling and forming tracks, setting in culverts . . .
Watering in dry months is done with tractor and water tank and takes four hours a day, twice a week.
They estimate up to 4000 trees, native and exotic, have been planted and are thriving under the shelter of the existing canopy of original plantings of pines and willow.
Sugar maples, ash, alder, pittosporum, matagouri, kowhai, flax are planted out in glades between more mature oaks, poplars, eucalypts and willow.
Apples, peaches and apricots saplings are slipped in within reaching distance of the trail.
An old, somewhat stunted swamp cyprus stretches its lichen-covered branches and fresh new growth over a large wetland pond. A mountainous stack of slash sits nearby waiting for the next burn-off.
I am told you couldn't see the pond when they started.
We walk as far as the boat harbour before Peter disappears to collect his ute and we resume the ''reccie'' by vehicle. (The walkway is ordinarily closed to vehicles but access can be arranged as required.)
''People give what they can. All different people come and give a hand. If they saw up wood that's what they do. Others might drop off a load of gravel. Everybody has their jobs,'' Peter says.
He's unsure of how many kilometres of track there is. ''I'm a bit scared to measure it.''
However long, this trail comes in every style imaginable.
Wide and narrow, dirt, shingle, river-rock, grassy meadow and pine duff, the tracks amble and diverge throughout, enticing walkers and cyclists to lose themselves in its wildest haunts and emerge again to reveal wide lakeside views.
The bird-song gives lie to that fact it is a popular and well-used wilderness. People roam or cycle through, collect mushrooms; they fish, picnic; children tumble down the grassy banks, peer into ponds for tadpoles and dragon flies.
Iona Home in Oamaru hosts picnics here by the lakeside, outdoor exercise classes are held, people get married here, an art exhibition is planned and Waitaha continue to travel up from the coast to collect raupo, as they have always done.
The adjacent golf course, boat harbour, camping ground and lake hum with quiet human activity.
''There are always people around,'' Peter says.
He helps Graham release the slightly crumpled and stuck tailgate of the ute.
''Best not mention that - we got talking and I backed into a tree,'' Peter says.
Go there
The Otematata Wetlands Walkway is situated between the shores of Lake Aviemore and Loch Laird Rd.
-By Ruth Grundy
