Port Hills Trails Collective, Christchurch

Words: Malcolm McClurg

In 2022 Mike Baddeley and the Ground Effect crew started the new Taylors Escape track on land owned by the Taylors Mistake Bach Association. Being a bach owner and resident in Taylors Mistake, I watched two guys cutting grass down the hill for hours. This was the precursor to the new track.

Hearing that this track was going to be dug I joined the 50 odd people who completed the track in a day. The success of the track was immediate, but the following wet winter exposed many under runners and wet and muddy gulleys. With help of sponsors, Ground Effect, VIP Timber and many of the original track crew and WSP community day volunteers, we managed to bridge the holes and gulleys.

While working on this track another local resident said it would have been great to have had a loop track around the valley when her boys were young. This gave me the idea to create Te Onepoto loop track from the car park to Taylors Escape along the north side of the valley. While riding this track with my Tuesday night riders, one of our group made the comment ”it would be great if this track could go over to Sumner”.

That was all I needed and after a lot of bush whacking and testing new lines through the trees above the car park I reached the first hairpin bend in the road. Then with the help of Dave Mitchell, we mapped out the switch backs up the ridge. Having reached the open ground and out of the trees we called in volunteers to help dig the rest of the track.

While excavating the track below a large rock bluff we found we were digging up large flat slabs of stone. Before we knew it, these slabs were being stacked to form one of the iconic switch backs. There were a couple of sheep skulls lying in the gully and with so much digging to form the bends, someone came up with the name 'Skull-dug-gery' corner which has now stuck.

Skullduggery Corner.

Most of the new track was on Taylor’s Mistake Bach Association Land and it should be acknowledged how supportive the bach owners have been to allow these tracks to be formed. The last section of the track to Taylors Mistake Road and bottom of Scarborough Bluffs track was on Council land and Nick Singleton and Asher Richards, Council Park rangers, were essential in gaining approval and providing materials to bridge the wet gulley. Te Onepoto Track was completed in October 2025 and now on Trail Forks.

During these track dig days, Ground Effect was vital in putting me in touch with so many people and organisations doing similar work that I could call on for volunteers. Once these new tracks were completed, I started looking at the other tracks around Taylors Mistake and in January worked on a small section on Godley Head track creating B routes around a few rock out crops and heard lots of favourable comments.

Having worked with so many groups who were building and repairing tracks, I noticed how fragmented we all were, working hard in our local areas with many of the tracks in between not receiving regular maintenance. Sections of trail on Mt Pleasant, Greenwood, Godley Head and John Britten had barely been touched since first built in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s.

The scale of the task was too large for any small group and I came up with the idea of these existing groups and others who tended to look after local tracks to become 'Track Hero's' and in March we had the first meeting of all the various groups and individuals at the CCC Park Rangers HQ in Victoria Park.

The idea was to create zones across the Port Hills, based on the current public and private groups and find others interested in overseeing tracks between these groups. The concept was seen as something to bring the Port Hills trail network into a cohesive mtbing destination, similar to many other regions in NZ - Queenstown, Nelson, Wellington and Rotorua.

The other idea was to establish an overarching organisation that could co-ordinate and work with existing organisations, landowners and managers to maintain, improve or form new trails. With the assistance of Joshua Merriam from the Lyttelton Mountain Bike Club and the Canterbury Mountain Bike Club we are very close to creating the Port Hills Trail Collective.

While so much good work has being done in certain areas, the older tracks had become badly rutted and poorly drained with challenging rock sections. The riding experience had become extremely technical lacking flow, forcing many to take the Summit Road as a safer option. These tracks are the connectors to the eastern Port Hills trails and were considered the priority for this year.

Now after 9 months, 632 volunteer hours, 232 people over 22 kms of tracks including V-Twin, Mt Pleasant shared use tracks, Greenwood, Godley Head and Anaconda have all been restored with A, B and a few C routes to cater for a range of riding skills. Again, a big thank you to all the volunteers, CCC Park Rangers for their overarching input and the BBQ, Ground Effect for the tools and snags, Dig Ōtautahi for helpers and tools, WSP Community Day volunteers, and my JETS Tuesday Night Riders.

Volunteers on the BBQ.

Look out for the launch of the Port Hills Trail Collective and scan the QR code you will find at the start of the eastern Port Hills track entry points.

We have a number of new tracks in the pipeline for the 2027 digging season so check out the Port Hills Trails Collective and join up, we'd love to expand our network of volunteers.