Million $ Track

A fun twisty loop with an optional extension. This trail was initially built in August 2008 by Southstar Adventures and was the first digger built trail in the park. This followed the existing trails on top of the hill being lost to logging operations during the early part of 2008. The majority of the work was funded by a grant from the NZ Transport Agency that was paid as compensation for trails lost at the southern end of the park when State Highway 3 was re-routed. The money was held in trust by the NPDC for some years and the club finally made the decision to use it by paying for a trail built by professionals for the first time in its history. Jeff Carter and James Dodds came down from Rotorua for a week and put the trail in. The misconception that a huge amount of money had been paid for its construction lead to the name the trail is now called; the Million $ trail. Subsequently a lot of the Southstar trails got damaged by further logging operations on the southern slopes of the hill and volunteer work had to be undertaken to re-establish a loop and then the figure of 8 loop. Some of the Southstar trail was saved and is still used, mainly the part on the east and northern side of the main loop.