"Stupidity and sheer refusal to give up" is Gibbston Community Association chairwoman Susan Stevens' motivation for putting six years of blood, sweat and tears into creating the Gibbston River Trail.
The trail, set to open in October, has been Mrs Stevens' fulltime job since 2004, a fulltime job she is doing for no money.
She has toiled for up to 80 hours a week fighting countless hurdles, including clearing gorse, negotiating easements with landowners, doing paperwork and raising $1.4 million but her resolve has never faltered.
Many people have asked Mrs Stephens (48) why, and the answer is always because the community voted unanimously it wanted a trail and she said she would do it.
"It's been my responsibility, because I said I would do it. The community said they wanted it and I said I'd do it. For me there was no question. So many times I thought this is the hurdle that will finish me, but in the end I always found a way. It is the hardest thing I have ever undertaken in my life," she said.
She said she went into the process completely unprepared for what was ahead.
"No-one could tell me because it had not been done before. It was a step-by-step process. If I had any idea what I had got myself into, I'm not sure I would have said I will do it," she said.
The idea of a trail along the Kawarau River at Gibbston came from members of the community.
"Many people came to the committee with the same idea but the committee kept saying 'it's Queen's chain' so it kept being dismissed. But in 2005 when I was chair I began working on the idea in earnest and asked what is this Queen's chain?"
She soon discovered the Queen's chain, or publicly-owned land along the banks of rivers, did not exist and the committee would have to secure easements from 10 landowners to build the 8.5km trail from the bungy bridge to the Waitiri Creek winery.
A unanimous vote at the association's 2005 general meeting set the project in motion.
Since then, Mrs Stevens has worked fulltime for six years, or as she puts it "an insane amount of time", making the idea a reality.
"I can do it fulltime because I'm retired. I'm lucky to be in that position to devote so many hours to it," she said.
The total cost of the trail has been $1.4 million, which the association raised through community events, grants and donations in kind. About 300 people have been involved, with Mrs Stevens at the helm.
She spent "several hundred" hours physically clearing the trail.
"One section was 1km of solid gorse. It was just hideous. I started by myself. No-one would help me. I had my whoppers but after half a day I realised they weren't going to work, so I got my chainsaw. I was a bloody mess. I did that every day for a week and only cleared 50m."
"I kept thinking, 'I need help.' I knew it looked hopeless but I thought if I can just make enough progress to not make it look hopeless, people will help me."
The council suggested she use offenders from the Community Probation Service, which has proved invaluable. Four workers cleared 400m in the first day.
She understood why other association members did not devote as much time as her to the project.
"They all have jobs and families. Whenever I have needed it, they have always risen to the challenge. When we were struggling to raise the last of the money and our grants were about to expire, they organised a wine auction which was hugely popular," she said.
Originally from a small town in Ohio, Mrs Stevens moved to New Zealand 11 years ago with her husband, Terry.
"We came here on holiday the year before and we just fell in love with the place. We were at the stage in our lives were we wanted to build our dream home where we could live for the rest of our lives and decided this was where we wanted it to be."
The couple are now New Zealand citizens living in their "dream home".
They grow pinot noir grapes on the property, which they sell to Peregrine and Mount Edward wineries, and also have a small boutique label called Wild Hare.
Before moving to New Zealand, they both had worked in marketing and market research in the pharmaceutical industry in the United States.
Her husband is Wakatipu Trails Trust chairman. The couple fund the running of the association and were the single largest purchaser at the association's wine auction.
Mrs Stevens said that when the trail was finished, "I will be excited and joyful."
