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| Malcolm on the Molesworth Station |
The great thing about towing our car is that we can explore roads that
we wouldn't always be happy taking Tangaroa
along. This has taken us to some
interesting places, including ones that we wondered if we would get back
from—with our nerves, or the car, in one piece.
We have visited remote and extensive back country stations, roads to
forgotten gold-mining settlements and over mountain passes.
One
of our most memorable forays was to Molesworth Station, New Zealand's biggest
farm. This is a route that can be used
by cars and small motor-homes of less than seven metres in length—which
unfortunately ruled Tangaroa out. Nevertheless Malcolm was keen to visit the
station by car. Unfortunately this was
the year that a magnitude 7.8 earthquake shook the top of the South Island,
blocking roads as well as causing damage to buildings, especially in the
Kaikoura area. While we were in Blenheim
we discovered that the Awatere Valley Road was closed by slips along the 100-kilometre
stretch to Molesworth's northern boundary.
We did go for a drive though, getting about half way before encountering
a bulldozer, so got a taster of the station.
We resolved to investigate from the Hanmer Springs end, which we did a
few months later.
It
was 26 kilometres from Hanmer Springs, over Jacks Pass, to the Acheron
Accommodation House. Built in 1862 as an
overnight stop for stockmen and travellers, this is the oldest building on the
Molesworth Station. It is of cob
construction and has a roof of beech rafters, thatched with tussock. I had been looking forward to seeing the old
buildings on the station and was sad to see that they had been damaged by the
earthquake and no repairs had been undertaken.
(Hopefully they will be renovated in due course.)
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| Acheron Accommodation House |
The
Accommodation House marked the start of the 59 kilometres of road leading to
the Molesworth Cob Cottage at the northern boundary of the station. This section of road can be driven in two
hours but we took much longer as we lingered—to read information panels, at
shelters, at suspension bridges, and at every spot that called to be
photographed. The first bridge we came
to, the Lower Acheron Suspension Bridge, was built in 1945 by engineering
students to replace an earlier bridge.
It was hard to imagine the days when 15,000 sheep would be driven over
the river here. Pig Trough Suspension
Bridge (named for the wild pigs living in a nearby gully) was built by the
Electricity Department in the 1980s, replacing two earlier bridges that had
washed away in floods.
The
scenery through the Molesworth was wide and empty. The Acheron River wound through valleys
bordered by distant, bare, mountain ranges.
The grass was brown but brightened by wild briar and swathes of
purple-blue vipers bugloss. These are
invasive weeds but the bugloss looked stunning against the backdrop of valley
and mountains. Honey is made from it, so
it is useful as well. The briar was said
to have been introduced to make rosehip jam which masked the flavour of poison
when trapping rabbits.
After
passing the confluence of the Severn and Acheron Rivers we came to Red Gate,
the place where Ivanhoe Augarde shot himself after the contents of a
love-letter he had written were read (by German Charlie, the man he had
entrusted to deliver it) to all and sundry.
Mortified, the embarrassed Augarde shot Charlie, and then committed
suicide. Augarde is remembered in the
name of nearby Mt Augarde.
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| Wide open spaces |
Ten
kilometres further on we drove across Isolated Flat—I actually thought everywhere on Molesworth was
isolated! At Wards Pass we stopped to
stretch our legs by walking steeply uphill to the trig. With an elevation of 1,279 metres, the views
from here in all directions were amazing.
Finally
we arrived at the Molesworth Cob Cottage, built in 1866 as the original
homestead. (The current homestead with
associated outbuildings, including an historic woolshed and a blacksmith's
shop, are viewed from a hill behind the Cob Cottage but are private.) We ate our picnic lunch here before starting
the long drive back to Hanmer Springs.
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| Molesworth Cob Cottage |
Another
day we took a long drive from Mossburn on SH 94 to Walter Peak Station on the
shores of Lake Wakatipu. Walter Peak is
a sheep station, founded in 1860 and still going strong. Covering more than 25,000 hectares, it runs
around 18,000 merino and perendale sheep and 800 beef cows. Our drive was
around 90 kilometres each way and, with our usual number of photo stops,
explorations and a relaxing break at Walter Peak, took us around six hours.
Our
first stop was at Mavora Lakes. These
two narrow lakes, North and South Mavora, are situated in a mountainous
landscape, surrounded by tussock grassland and beech forests. It is a magical place and no wonder the area
was used by Sir Peter Jackson when filming The
Lord of the Rings—the forests of South Mavora Lake became 'Fangorn Forest',
while the Mararoa River became the 'Silverload'. Enthusiastic trampers
can trek the 50-kilometre-long Mavora-Greenstone walkway starting here, but we
just wandered around the lakeside and adjacent bush, imagining hobbits and
elves behind every tree.
There is a DOC
camping ground at the lakes, accessible to motorhomes and caravans, and the
area is popular with those who love the outdoors. Many activities that are not normally allowed
in National Parks are permitted here, including 4WD driving (on tracks),
hunting, water sports, horse trekking, trout fishing and mountain biking. The long, narrow lakes are connected by a
small river, with the smaller South Mavora Lake being surrounded by beech
forest and the much larger North Mavora Lake being more open.
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| Views on the way to Walter Peak Station |
We drove on before too long though, the road taking us straight towards
the horizon, with the high Eyre and Thomson mountain ranges on each side. There were a couple of fords and some
narrow bridges that had fords beside them—so heavy vehicles could
continue. Suddenly,
and unexpectedly, the valley was revealed to be a plateau. A lower valley
appeared before us and the road dipped steeply down into it. Then it was on as before until we reached the
shores of Lake Wakatipu. There were
views up the lake towards Glenorchy and across towards Queenstown. The road then skirted past Mount Nicholas
Station, finally arriving at the lakeside at Walter Peak Station.
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| Old homestead at Walter Peak Station |
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| The TSS Earnslaw calls in to Walter Peak Station |
What
a contrast to the empty, open drive—this was like an oasis. There were white painted old homesteads, including the
Colonel's Homestead—rebuilt on a grander scale after a fire in 1977—surrounded by English-style cottage gardens and lawns. There were jetties and a boat was pulled up
on the beach. There was also a hotel
with a restaurant and a bar, where we gratefully ordered long, cold
drinks. Then we sat on the patio taking
in the views.
On
the drive we had only passed one vehicle, a couple of cyclists, and a posse of
horse-trekkers, but here were a group of tourists who had come across from
Queenstown. As we sat enjoying the view
they all made their way to the shearing shed for an agricultural show and we
had the place to ourselves. In the
distance the TSS Earnslaw could be seen making her way from Queenstown across the
blue waters of the lake. Built in 1912,
the Earnslaw is the last remaining
coal-fired passenger vessel in the southern hemisphere and is a very
picturesque boat. The station began
serving morning and afternoon tea to visitors in 1969 and has gone from
strength to strength.
Eventually the Earnslaw arrived and the tourists embarked for their return trip to
Queenstown. We decided it was high time
we left Walter Peak Station too, since it was now late afternoon, so we headed
back to Tangaroa.
Shorter
road trips we tackled were through some of the South Island's mountain passes. Whilst visiting the Canterbury town of
Fairlie, styled 'Gateway to the Mackenzie Country', we came upon a statue of
the man himself. Mackenzie (with various
spellings), also known as John, Jock and Mack, was a Scot who arrived in New Zealand
from the Australian gold-rushes. In 1855
Mackenzie was apprehended with 1,000 sheep belonging to the Rhodes Station near
Timaru. Station overseer, John
Sidebottom, and two Māori shepherds had pursued Mackenzie to the inland pass
that now bears his name. Mackenzie
pleaded innocence and quickly fled to Lyttelton where he was recaptured, tried
and sentenced to five years hard labour.
After escaping twice from prison, his case was reinvestigated and he was
pardoned.
Mackenzie returned to Australia and
obscurity, but in the South Island he became a Robin Hood-like folk hero, loved
for his rebellious nature, his brave escapades and his extraordinary ability as
a shepherd. When Mackenzie was caught by
Sidebottom, the Māori shepherds saw signs that this was not the first huge mob
of sheep that Mackenzie had smuggled through the pass and on to Dunedin, where
they would have been sold. Mackenzie and
his dog became symbolic of the struggle of the ordinary emigrant man, trying to
make a living in the new country. His
feats of exploration are now recognised—he was the first European to discover
the areas now known as the Lindis Pass, Mackenzie Pass and the Mackenzie
Basin. The whole district is named after
the sheep rustler.
We followed in Mackenzie's footsteps
by driving a circuit from Fairlie. SH 8
looped north and west to Burkes Pass. At
the pretty, gothic-style, Saint Patrick's church there was information about
the Burkes Pass area. Just a little
further on, past the Burkes Pass and memorial, we came to Dog Kennel Corner
where we turned onto Haldon Road. The
scenery here was amazing—a dusty basin stretched across to the distant
snow-capped ranges—and it wasn't hard to imagine Mackenzie passing by, driving
his herd of stolen sheep before him. A
short way along Mackenzie Pass Road we came to a small, three-sided
monument. On each face the same story is
told—in English, Māori and Gaelic: In
this spot James Mackenzie the freebooter was captured by John Sidebottom and
the Māoris Taiko and Seventeen and escaped from them the same night 4th March
1855.
The road then passed the Waratah Saddle, went through Limestone
Valley and Cricklewood, before rejoining the main road south of Fairlie.
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| The monument to Mackenzie |
Another
memorable road trip was Danseys Pass.
This pass links the Central Otago and Waitaki Districts, and stretches
from Kyeburn Diggings near Naseby, to Pukeraro near Duntroon. The pass is named after William Dansey, a
run-holder who was part of an expedition through the mountains in 1855. On reaching the western end of the pass the
men became the first Europeans to see the unique Maniototo landscape.
We
drove from Naseby to Kyeburn Diggings, at one time a gold-rush town but now
farming country. Where once were three
hotels, three stores, a butchery, a bakery and a school, all that remains from
that era is a hotel and the cemetery.
Standing beside the road a well-tended collection of memorials pays
tribute to those who died in the area.
An old sign by the entrance lists the charges for interment. A single grave would cost £1.0.0, though
children could be buried for £0.10.0 and a stillborn baby for five
shillings. This was a stark reminder of
the hard lives lived by the pioneers and I felt rather sad as I imagined a
grieving family burying a baby or small child.
The early miners had some success
digging and dredging for gold, and there was even a thriving community of
Chinese miners working in the area. By
the 1880s there were around 600 Chinese working in the area. They had their own store which was not
destroyed until 1920. Remnants of water
races dug by these Chinese miners are still visible on the hillsides.
The
Pass Hotel was built in 1862 by a stone mason known as 'Happy Bill'. Tales record how he was paid for his work in
beer, at the rate of a pint for every stone laid. Apparently on one occasion he fell into an
empty grave at the cemetery, where he spent the night oblivious to his surroundings. Now known as the Danseys Pass Coach Inn, the
hotel serves locals and passing tourists, rather than coaches and wagon-trains
going from the Otago goldfields.
We
deferred our visit to the hotel until we had driven along the pass road. Because the road traverses a high alpine pass
it is often closed during the winter snows but in summer, though narrow and
unsealed, (with steep drop-offs in places) it is an easy drive, taking around
an hour in each direction. It is marked
as being unsuitable for large vehicles or motorhomes, but we saw a campervan
and locals with trailers driving with no difficulty.
From
the hotel, the road wound its way through the Kakanui Mountains to the pass
itself, 920 metres above sea level. From
here we had views across goldy-white stretches of tussock, to where the
mountain slopes met a distant plain that stretched down to the coast near
Oamaru. We continued down through the
mountains until we came to farmland near Pukeraro, where we turned around.
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| The hotel at Danseys Pass |
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| Along the Danseys Pass road |
Back
at the hotel we enjoyed a pleasant lunch, sitting in gardens that included
remnants of old buildings amongst the briars and lawns. As we slaked the dust from our throats with
cold cider, we thought about the thirsty gold miners that would have sat here
over one hundred years ago.
Information about places mentioned in this post - correct at the time of writing
Walks
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On Molesworth Station
Molesworth
Homestead Lookout Track: 100 metres, 10 min, easy
Acheron Lookout
Track: 1
km, 20 min, easy
Trig Lookout
Track:
1.3 km, 25 min one way, easy
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Mavora Lakes
http://www.doc.govt.nz/parks-and-recreation/places-to-go/southland/places/mavora-lakes-conservation-park/
South Mavora Lake
Walking Track: 2.5 hr, easy: walking track (we
walked only part of this track)
Places to visit (drives)
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Molesworth Station
From Hanmer Springs take
Jollies Pass Rd. At Molesworth Station
follow Awatere Valley Rd to SH 1 near Seddon
http://www.doc.govt.nz/parks-and-recreation/places-to-go/southland/places/mavora-lakes-conservation-park/
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Walter Peak Station
From SH 94 take Mavora
Lakes Rd, then Mt Nicholas Rd which becomes Von Rd and Mt Nicholas-Beach Bay Rd
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Danseys Pass
From Kyeburn Diggings
take Danseys Pass Rd, through the pass to Livingstone-Duntroon Rd
www.centralotagonz.com/visit/danseys-pass
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