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| The Turnbull Thomson statue in Ranfurly |
We have spent a lot of time in Central Otago and have explored many of
the area's gravel roads and four wheel drive tracks. Much of these roads were developed by gold
miners in the 1800s and have since fallen into disuse. In Ranfurly there is a statue of John
Turnbull Thomson, who was the chief surveyor of what was then the newly
discovered province of Otago; he later became the first Surveyor General of New
Zealand. It was Thomson who surveyed the
land, named the features—all the animal names, such as the Pig Route Track, the
Horse Range, Wedderburn, Sowburn, Eweburn and so on, are down to him—and went
on to build bridges and roads.
Naturally
I thought the Thomson Gorge Road was one of his, but found out that this 30-kilometre-long
4WD track was named by George Thomson, a run-holder at the Matakanui
Station. The road goes from Crippletown,
beside Lake Dunstan, to Matakanui—once known as Tinkers. A road was long promised along this route but
this was not started until 1975!
Travellers and shepherds wore a dusty track in the earth which, though
it is now gravelled, is not always in good repair and is used only by intrepid
4WD drivers and cyclists.
Crippletown,
Logantown and Bendigo are ghost towns, and we spent several hours exploring the
ruins of cob buildings on another occasion.
Interestingly the name Bendigo comes from the name of a Methodist parson
from Nottingham, England, my home town.
Earlier in his life Abednigo Thomson had been a boxer who earned the
nickname Bendigo due to his habit of ducking blows. A friend of Bendigo's emigrated to Australia
where he named a creek after the ex-boxer.
Gold was found in the area and the diggings was called Bendigo. When miners flocked to the Otago goldfields
they brought the name with them. Bendigo
thrived for three years from 1869 when the miners moved to Logantown, further
up the slopes. This settlement was
equally short-lived.
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| Old gold mining settlement |
Past
the Bendigo Loop Road we came to the junction with the Thomson Gorge Road,
which started a few kilometres back at Lindis Crossing. All along the road we saw evidence of old
gold workings. We passed the remains of
the Alta Reef, then stopped at the Come-In-Time Reef, where there is a short
walk past an old mine entrance to a restored stamper battery. We passed more old workings, the Rise and
Shine and the North End, before we arrived at the saddle crossing, 900 metres
above sea level. By now I was starting
to get fed up with getting out of the car to open and close gates—there were 23
in all—but we were enjoying the views of tussocky hills and distant
valleys. Looking to the west we could
see the Upper Clutha Basin, the Hawea Flats and Mount Aspiring National Park in
the far distance.
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| Historic machinery at the Come-In-Time battery... |
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| ...and great views along the road |
At
Thomsons Creek there was still an old stone hut, built in 1908 to provide
shelter for drovers and other travellers, which we investigated before driving
through the gorge. This section of the
road had very steep drops down to the Thomson Stream and I couldn't help but
lean away from that side of the car.
Eventually
we came out of the gorge at Matakanui, tucked in under the Dunstan Mountains at
the end of the road to nowhere! This was
almost another ghost town—Matakanui still had a few old buildings in use
though. There was a white-washed
mud-brick building with 'Newton Tavern' painted in red on its side and another
cob construction with a retro-style sign advertising Matakanui General
Store. Both these buildings looked like
they were inhabited, though there was no-one about. We wandered around looking at the buildings
and relics of bygone days, such as water cannons that had once been used for
sluicing, and ancient farm machinery. It
was a picturesque place and gave us more insights into the old gold mining
days.
Another
gold-mining ghost-town foray took us into the mountains above Bannockburn. We found some wooden signs by a gate off
Schoolhouse Road. One announced that we
were in Quartzville, while a dilapidated and leaning one said, 'Track to
Carricktown'. We were hoping that this
was the Nevis Road that would take us to the Young Australia waterwheel, high
up on the Carrick Range. When we
mentioned to friends that we had attempted to drive up this so-called 4WD track
they told us they thought it was a walking track. Certainly the 'road' was extremely steep and
very rocky—the car lurched from one lump of slippery rock to the next. Eventually we came to the ruined, roofless
buildings that were all that was left of Carricktown. There were great views from here, down to
Lake Dunstan and Cromwell. We decided
against continuing, fearing we might damage the car, so returned to
Bannockburn.
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| Heading back from Carricktown |
On
another day we decided to drive what is described as a 'good weather road'—partly
muddy 4WD track and partly gravelled—which went from Clyde to Bannockburn. We hoped for more success on this trip, and
cautiously set off on the Hawksburn Road near the Clyde bridge. The first part of the road, which went to a
look-out, was windy but metalled. After
stopping to look down onto Clyde and towards Alexandra, we continued. The next section of the road was just a wide
series of deep wheel ruts, which we had to negotiate carefully. Then the road became gravel again and wiggled
its way along ridges and around gullies with very steep sides.
We
were navigating with our road atlas, so were perplexed when we came to a
junction that was not marked on the map.
We hadn't seen anyone else since we left the viewpoint around an hour
previously and the area was pretty isolated.
We decided to turn to the right but after a short while we suspected we
had taken the wrong direction. We
managed to turn the car around and made our way back to the crossroads. Here we came upon a cyclist and three young
men on trail bikes—all looking as confused as us. I asked the cyclist where he had come from
and so ascertained the correct way to Bannockburn. We pointed out the road to Clyde. Then the motorcyclists took off ahead of us
and the cyclist rode away in the opposite direction. Moments later we were alone again and it was
almost as if we had imagined the meeting.
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| Not suitable for cars! |
From here the road
dropped down from the hills to a gate.
Beside it there was a shot-up sign indicating that the road we had just
driven along was 'not suitable for cars'.
Oh well. From here it wasn't far
into pretty Bannockburn, where we soon found the historic pub. We ordered long cold drinks and relaxed in
their garden. That ended our Otago
explorations by car for a while.
We
did some more road trips though, in other parts of the South Island. The one to
Mesopotamia Station was memorable because we witnessed, and were nearly
involved in, a spectacular accident.
We
had been exploring the Peel Forest to the north of Geraldine and decided to
take the drive to Mesopotamia Station, which is only about an hour further
on. Mesopotamia was made famous by
Samuel Butler, the English writer who established the station in 1860. Because the area was so isolated he called
the satirical novel he wrote there 'Erewhon' (nowhere spelled backwards).
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| On the road to Mesopotamia Station |
We
enjoyed the drive alongside the braided Rangitata River, seeing sheep wandering
in the road, sheep in paddocks and sheep being penned and shorn in a
woolshed. Eventually we came to the end
of the road and turned back for Geraldine, where Tangaroa was parked. Then,
at one of the bends in the road, we encountered a vehicle coming in the
opposite direction. Because the road had
so little traffic on it, the other driver obviously did not expect to see
us. He braked, skidded and rolled,
bouncing in our direction. I was sure
the vehicle would crash into us but Malcolm skilfully drove on, swerving around
the car as it careened towards us. The
other vehicle came to a stop on its roof behind us and we jumped out of our car
to check the occupants. Amazingly both
young men, and their dog, emerged unharmed from the wreck. Malcolm helped them right their car while I
stood, shaking with shock, at the roadside.
The boys were able to start the car in a cloud of oily smoke and drive
it—with its roof almost down to the steering wheel!—to the grass at the side of
the road. While they phoned for rescue
we got back into our car and continued our journey, pondering on what might
have happened. Everyone had been
lucky.
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| The road to Mt Aspiring |
Probably the
worst road trip we experienced was from Wanaka to Mt Aspiring Station. This was not because of accidents, the
weather or the views though—it was because of the rough, rutted and corrugated
road surface that took at least an hour to jolt along. This was compounded though by something that
was our own fault entirely—we hadn't done our homework! At the end of the road we found the Rob Roy
track, described as the 'best short walk in New Zealand'. We hadn't known about this ten-kilometre-long
walk into the Mount Aspiring National park, so weren't prepared to do it—and
have been disappointed ever since.
Nevertheless
the alpine scenery was magnificent as we made our way from Wanaka and, leaving
the lakeside behind began our drive up the Matukituki Valley. The green mountain slopes were snow-capped
and the further we drove, the snowier the mountains became. After crossing several fords we came to a
flower-filled meadow that could have been in Switzerland. Just beyond this was the Raspberry Flat car park
where, across a bridge, the Rob Roy Track began. If we ever brave this road again it will be
because we really want to walk this track!
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| Next time we'll walk from here... |
Information about places mentioned in this post - correct at time of writing
Walks
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Come-in-Time (on Thomson
Gorge Rd)
www.doc.govt.nz/parks-and-recreation/places-to-go/otago/places/bendigo-area/things-to-do/come-in-time-battery-walk
15 min one way, easy:
walking track
Places to visit (drives)
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Thomson Gorge Road (4WD)
Thomson Gorge Rd goes
from Bendigo to Matakanui
www.southernheritage.org.nz/otagotrails/trails/pdf/thomsongorgeroad.pdf
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Carricktown(4WD)
Take Quartzville Rd from
Bannockburn to NevisRd (this route was too rough for us, the website warns to
travel in a group)
www.centralotagonz.com/sports-and-outdoors/four-wheel-driving/nevis-valley
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Clyde to Bannockburn
(4WD)
Take Hawksburn Rd from
Clyde and Bannockburn Rd into Bannockburn
www.centralotagonz.com/cycling-trails/alexandra-clyde/hawksburn-road
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Mesopotamia Station
Take Rangitata Gorge Rd
from Peel Forest
www.mesopotamia.co.nz
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