Diary of our XC trailbuilding at Living Springs (number of people in brackets)
8 March 06 - First scoping visit (2)
5 April 06 - Second scoping visit (2)
6 May 06 - Third scoping visit, began marking out some track (2)
13 May 06 - Began benching Mississippi Trail (kanuka) (2)
10 June 06 - Continued benching Mississippi Trail and built top switchback (5)
9 July 06 - Continued benching Mississippi Trail, began building keyhole bend (8)
19 August 06 - Continued benching Mississippi Trail (4)
16 September 06 - Continued benching Mississippi Trail (9)
30 December 06 - Marked line through The Pines, began clearing track (chainsawing) - pouring rain! (4)
2 January 07 - Continued clearing track in The Pines (4)
6 January 07 - Continued clearing track and began benching in The Pines (7)
13 January 07 - Trailbuilding advisory session with Nick Singleton (CCC trail GURU)
23 January 07 - Continued benching in The Pines (5)
27 January 07 - Continued benching in The Pines (4)
5 February 07 - Built lower bridge for The Pines and culverts for Mississippi Trail (2)
6 February 07 - Continued benching in The Pines and installed lower bridge (10)
21 February 07 - Paul cut out a few kanuka stumps in The Pines (1)
3 March 07 - Benched The Pines from bottom gate to top of switchback, built another switchback, tidied up Onga Onga on Mississippi (7)
5 March 07 - Rick installed the cattlestop at the OCC and has another one ready to install at exit of The Pines (1)
17 March 07 - Trimmed trees below OCC, benched initial line of the track above The Pines cattlestop (4)
5 May 07 - Continued clearing and benching in The Pines, confirmed location of remaining upper track in The Pines (4)
11 May 07 - Built the main bridge for The Pines (1)
12 May 07 - Installed the main bridge and continued clearing and benching in The Pines (4)
19 May 07 - Built another bridge (2)
4 June 07 - Continued clearing and benching in The Pines (5)
30 June 07 - Scoping trip for yet another 5km of new track in the upper sections of native bush! (2)
20 July 07 - Rick installed cattlestop at the top of The Pines (1)
20 July 07 - Cleared the felled trees all the way to the cattlestop at the top of The Pines! Drizzling. (5)
21 July 07 - Made huge progress towards benching to the top of The Pines. Jimmy and Ben built a hut for the kids (13)
28 July 07 - Continued to fine tune switchbacks and benching in The Pines and track above pines (5)
18 August 07 - Completed upper section of The Pines track, improved the Mississippi Trail and scoped out the lower sections of the awesome Zane's Trail (7)
22 September 07 - Built the initial 150m of Zane's Trail, including a cool boulder bridge. Buried a stinky decomposing sheep. The four kids enjoyed playing in the stream (7)
10 October 07 - Greg came over and helped us build up two more long bridges to install on Zane's Run at Labour Weekend (2)
20 October 07 - Continued building more of Zane's Trail, including installing 2 more bridges and dealing with a challenging wee rock squeeze. (7)
22 October 07 - Continued building more of Zane's Trail, including a huge boulder 'rollover'. Nice trail, this one! (6)
26 October 07 - Zane and Craig scoped out the upper half of Zane's Trail (2)
27 October 07 - Greg and Craig built up the hinged bridge for Zane's Trail (2)
9 November 2007 - Graham cleaned up areas in The Pines etc (1)
10 November 07 - Installed the hinged bridge and anchored a challenging retaining wall on Zane's, built the lower switchback on Mississippi (8)
16 November 07 - Scoped out a different line for the next section of Zane's so as to stay in the native forest by the creek (1)
15 December 07 - Built one of the two Mississippi switchbacks on the spur and fine tuned some of Zane's (8)
20 January 08 - Built the remaining Mississippi spur switchback and fine tuned some other bits (10)
8 March 08 - Continued extending Zane's Trail, over into the adjacent forested gully (5)
16 March 08 - Paul and Anton went over and, using a block and tackle system, moved a massive boulder that a bunch of us guys failed to budge the last time we were there! (2)
21 March 08 - Craig and Nigel built up the first of the three new cattlestops (2)
13 April 08 - With a huge team we built a massive amount of new track on Zane's. Just needs three more bridges built and installed and a bit of berm fine tuning (15)
25 April 08 - Nigel and Sean spent a long day with us building and installing three bridges on Zanes and doing a bit of trackwork (4)
17 May 08- Our biggest team yet! Built 180m of new track on Zanes and refined a lot of the track built in April, including the approaches to the new bridges. Fantastic progress! (19)
31 May 2008 - Craig, Nigel and Greg built up another two cattlestops. These, and the one built in March, will be installed during winter (3)
8 June 2008 - Craig scoped out a few different options for the top section of Zanes. Also (with Andrea's help) took over the two cattlestops (1)
15 June 2008 - Boy, we're getting some momentum now - 28 people! Fine tuned lots of the existing Zanes and built a whole heap more. It's a fair walk back to the car now. Andrea started installing netting on the bridges. And today we broke the 1000 volunteer hours mark! (28)
20 July 2008 - It was raining on Saturday so we headed over on Sunday and it was very muddy on the existing track. This was useful to identify where there are drainage issues. Where we were digging was okay and we built another 140m of track including most of the spade work for 3 switchbacks (19)
6 September 2008 - Simon and Graham helped us realign the main Pines bridge and do a heap of maintenance work in the Pines (4)
14 September 2008 - Finished the maintenance work in the Pines and Rhymes with Orange, installed Geogrid on 5 of the bridges and started building the Bamfords Rd entrance track (11)
14 September 2008 - Rebekah, Graham, Bridget, Shailer and Zane attended a Sustainable Trailbuilding workshop
18 September 2008 - Took the opportunity for Ric Balfour (ex IMBA Trail Care Crew) to check out some of what we have been building to give some advice on how we can make it better to ride and more sustainable. Rebekah, Zane, Graham, Richard and Denis all made time to take in what Ric said
27 October 2008 - As recommended by Ric Balfour, we fine tuned several sections of Zane's (widening, armouring, backsloping, improving drainage, providing alternative lines etc) (9)
9 Novemer 2008 - Continued improving Zane's (6) - 100th trackbuilder!
11 November 2008 - Paul spent the day spraying to clear the weeds on the trails (1)
14 November 2008 - Paul continued spraying the weeds on the trails. He is a legend. (1)
30 November 2008 - Spent a BIG day installing the three cattlestops we built up a few months back. While the approaches still need to be finished, they are rideable - no more gates to open!!! Greg, Sam and Andrea, you guys are great! (4 x 2)

At an average of about 4 to 5 hours per visit, approximate total hours spent building these trails to 30 November 2008 is: (4 x 313) 1252 volunteer hours!