A father-son duo has built Rotorua's newest attraction from scratch - using their graphic design prowess to take their 1850s logging-themed mini golf course idea from concept to reality.
James Alstrop and his father Allan have been working on the course for six months - and it's taken many a long day to pull it off, with the pair estimating the course has taken 15,000 man hours to create.
Lumberjax Mini Golf is one part of the new Motion Entertainment complex that opens to the public on Saturday and also features a trampoline park, tenpin bowling facility, laser tag zone, escape rooms and a children's play area.
James Alstrop says the idea behind the mini golf course came after a lot of brainstorming and research into the history of Rotorua.
They discovered that the area used to be the base for a bustling logging town, so decided on a lumberjack theme. The course is awash with sawmills and timber and "has a real old-school feel", Mr Alstrop says.
Lumberjax Mini Golf opens to the public tomorrow (Supplied)
He and his father have a graphic design background, and he says that creative history is what gave them the courage to attempt such a colossal project.
"With the conceptual side we did a hell of a lot of drawings - my old man's very good on that side. The whole concept we created from start to finish," he said.
But it wasn't always a smooth journey, and there were plenty of times along the way that made them wonder whether they had been a little too optimistic in undertaking such a large-scale task.
"We definitely had moments where we wondered if we were ever going to get it finished, but we put in a few more hours and got it done," he said.
The course is estimated to have taken 15,000 man hours to create (Supplied)
One of the key contributors to the project, aside from James and Allan Alstrop themselves, was a group of inmates from a local prison.
"They did the fabrication steel work and basically provided us with the base of the build - so while they were doing that me and the old man could work on other bits and pieces," Mr Alstrop said.
And the completed course has been quite a hit with the locals - with a number of schoolkids and private groups already having been taken through, and raving about their experience.
"It's been really cool - a few of the children said it looks like a miniature Disneyland," Mr Alstrop said.
The course includes a shed, a furnace, a gorge, a glowing anvil, and a black-lit gold mine tunnel - and there's even a long-drop toilet, complete with pipes that players hit the ball into.
Motion Entertainment opens to the public for the first time on Saturday at 10am.
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