Thanks to southern ingenuity, donations and plenty of hard work, Invercargill's velodrome has been transformed.
While cyclists continue to whizz round the steeply banked oval track, workers are putting the finishing touches on a giant sandpit in the middle.
The four-court beach pit will be used by dozens of competitors in the Southland Grand Slam Beach Volleyball Tournament on Friday and Saturday.
Volleyball Southland regional regional development manager Donna Milne came up with the idea of hosting an indoor beach volleyball tournament in the city, figuring its novelty value as the southern-most beach volleyball tournament in the world would capture the imagination of players and raise the sport's profile.
But it has taken drainage contractor Lanzi Arnott, whose daughter plays regular indoor volleyball, to make the beach pit happen.
With the support of local businesses, he has supervised its construction, using 500 tonnes of borrowed sand carted in donated trucks and laid within a frame of borrowed stormwater pipes.
The task has taken Mr Arnott and his volunteer helpers four days to complete and he is more than happy with the results.
''It was a lot easier than I thought,'' he said yesterday.
The most difficult job was bringing in the sand from the car park into the velodrome by the only available route - through the tunnel usually used by cyclists, he said.
Mr Arnott said the concept of the beach pit was similar to foundations he laid for buildings.
''So I knew it was going to work.''
He estimated it would have cost Volleyball Southland at least $20,000 to create the beach pit if local businesses and individuals had not given their time and equipment - $5000 for the sand, $9000 for the pipes and $8000 for machinery hire and labour.
''A big thank you to everyone who helped ... We've got a $20,000 beach pit for nothing.''
Among the competitors at the tournament will be the New Zealand No 1 beach pairings of Tauranga's champion pair Sam O'Dea and Mike Watson and Hamilton's Julia Tilley and Shaunna Polley.
The four will also lead a development camp for junior players on Sunday.
A community ''beach dig'' will be held on Sunday morning, after which Mr Arnott and his helpers will begin the huge task of dismantling the beach pit and trucking out all the sand.
