#678 Arrowtown, New Zealand

www.arrowtownautumnfestival.co.nz 

When I think of yellow and autumn leaves, no matter where I am in the world one of the first things I think of is Arrowtown, New Zealand, a small town near where I grew up in Queenstown (#998) which had an Autumn Festival every year and was always splashed in brilliant color by the leaves. But there's more than that.

I also love the history. A gold-mining center (similar to Skipper's #731 and Cardrona #696, both in the area) from the early 1860s until the gold rush moved to the West Coast (after which many Chinese miners arrived), and the lines of pretty trees were planted in 1867. It really only has one main street, Buckingham Street, a single lane, one way road, nowadays full of cars parked, and it is flanked by (mostly replaced) old stores and cottages dating from this time. The one story buildings and old stone constructions are wild west and very timely. At its highest it had 7000 people, but it dropped as low as 200 in the 1960s; now it maintains around 2100 permanent residents.

What about the nature? Queenstown has lots to offer, of course, but at the foot of the Crown Range Mountains (where parapenters regularly jump off), very close to Coronet Peak ski field and Millbrook and Sir Michael Hill's Golf Courses, and the gateway where the Arrow River meets the Wakatipu Basin and 4WD tracks lead up to the old gold mining center of Macetown, plus multiple cycling and biking trails nearby, it has its own share of fun.


Don't forget to have an icecream while shopping on Buckingham Street - it's a tradition!

Old Buckingham Steet from www.arrowtown.com

Source: http://www.arrowtown.com/ This site has a great Buckingham Street panorama.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrowtown

#696 Cardrona (Pub), New Zealand

Perhaps you've already seen my Cardrona Bra Fence entry (#859) - but where is Cardrona itself? It's not really a town anymore, and most New Zealanders only know about the ski field or the pub, sitting lonely amongst the buildings left over from when it was a bustling mining town.

Established in 1863, it is one of New Zealand's oldest hotels (and is older than the township itself, which was founded in 1865), and among other cool elements (aside from the phone box, old petrol pump, historical general store, school house, multiple tractors and beautiful gardens, etc) there is a trapdoor inside to a cellar underneath the floor, and the decor includes antique fireplaces, creaky old wooden floors and the original bar. 16 hotel rooms stretch behind the original buildings, facing the beautiful gardens and old shed behind.

www.cardrona150.com

Once the town had 4 hotels, Chinese stores, and butcheries, 3 European stores, a blacksmith and a baker reaching its peak as a butchery hub and prosperous town in the 1880s and 1890s. Now, little more than the hotel remains. Memorable 1930s owner Jim Patterson refused to serve women, and wore his spectacles and braces behind the current bar and served warm beer from a corked bottle rationing his customers as needed, depending on which direction they were driving. 

Source: http://www.cardronahotel.co.nz/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardrona,_New_Zealand

#731 Skipper's, Queenstown, New Zealand

View from the entrance to Skipper's Road from the Coronet
Peak Road looking back towards Arthur's Point, the back of
Queenstown Hill, Queenstown itself tucked into the valley,
and Lake Wakatipu with Cecil Peak behind.

Just out of Queenstown (#998) is an old miner's town, now a ghost town. It is also one of my favorite drives in the country. We have always had a 4WD, so it was the place we always took our guests. Now, most people go in on some kind of tour (cycling, jetboating, bungy jumping, etc!).

Skipper's is famous for its peaked brown landscape with tussock growing over the hills (this is very typical of Central Otago). While some parts of the region are slowly being taken over by introduced pine trees, I don't agree with NGO Wilding Pines' method of spraying them which looks worse than the trees and leaks poisonous sprays into rivers.

As Dangerous Roads says, the 16.5km 1880s road built to replace a small track during the gold rush days "is so narrow that if two vehicles have to pass each other, one vehicle might have to reverse for anything up to 3 kilometres of winding narrow road to get to a place wide enough to pass. It’s one of only two roads in the country where rental car insurance is not honoured if driven on. Skippers Road is mostly one-way, narrow and steep with sheer drops of several hundred metres." Soon after you cross the pass from the Coronet Peak Road, you come to the aptly named Hell's Gates, for example.

The canyon itself was carved glaciers over 25,000 years ago and further refined by the Shotover River. Significant numbers of settlers first came to the area in the late 1860s after Thomas Arthur and Harry Redfurn found 4 ounces of gold in 3 hours near the appropriately named modern spot of Arthur's Point. Near the subsequently named Maori Point, 300 ounces was discovered on one beach in a day after two Maori miners (Dan Ellison/Raniera Erihana and Hakaria Maeroa) tried to cross (almost losing their dog in the process). This area later became a boom town called Charlestown.

I once heard that the Shotover River had more gold mined from it than any other river in the world, and all the tourist websites in Queenstown love to say that it is the 'richest gold-bearing river in the world' except one which says it is the second richest, and another says that it's only the richest for its size, and another gives this fame to the connected Kawarau River, but I can't find any data online to back up this claim and wikipedia says since the quantity of gold was never accurately measured its impossible. It is true, however, that due to the erosion on the hills surrounding Skipper's and the alluvial nature of the river itself, significant amounts of gold could be obtained from panning, which is usually only used for prospecting.

Irishman "Skipper" Malcolm Duncan (who worked on American ships to earn his name) first discovered gold at Skipper's Creek, later to be Skipper's Point or simply 'Skipper's' and it was here and at Mt. Aurum Station that the most buildings remain. Working the claims until the 1900s, their water races, holding dams, sluicings and tailings are still visible today. Aside from this, the main sites to see are the Mt. Aurum Homestead, the Skipper's school and the cemetery.

It took around 20 years of horse-tracks and lost horses before demand for the road was sufficient. It was built over seven years by 4 contractors. Initially, motor cars were prevented from using it, and later, restricted permits had to be obtained in order to drive on it. It was made a New Zealand Historical Site in 2006. The Skipper's suspension bridge (2.2m wide, 96m long, 90m high) was not built until 1898, long after the main gold rush was finished. It replaced another suspension bridge built closer to the water.

Further up the Skipper's road was Bullendale, site of the first electricity used in New Zealand.

Skipper's School was renovated in 1992.

Inside the school house.

The schoolhouse before renovation

Skipper's Bridge before the trees grew!

Skipper's School house in its heyday.

Welcome Home Inn, Skipper's is no longer standing, but its chimney is!

The Otago Hotel in Aspinall's Terrace, half way up the Skipper's Road.

The restored Mt. Aurum Homestead.

Source: http://dangerousroads.org/new-zealand/55-skippers-canyon-road-new-zealand.html
http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/photograph/8598/shotover-river
http://www.larchhill.com/queenstown.htm

#828 Moeraki Boulders, Otago, New Zealand

One memorable family trip location was to see the Moeraki Boulders in Otago, New Zealand. These are marvelous geological formations called concretions, a type of sedimentary rock that builds up over time before the final hardening of the rock occurs. They have many cracks leading to a hollow core and can be as big as 3 meters in diameter! I remember my dad making my brother a kelp ball, the first time I could imagine that something like seaweed could bounce!

 

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moeraki_Boulders

#932 Otago Peninsula, New Zealand

Can't believe this is only my second post about my beautiful home, New Zealand!

The Otago Peninsula will remain forever in my bones and soul. I have childhood memories of a crib (cottage) with stiff wooden kitchen drawers filled with someone else's cutlery, spartan 70's furniture, and a car load of groceries to ensure we wouldn't have to leave or starve. It was located on a freezing-cold windy stone beach at the end of a winding hilly track, surrounded by muddy green paddocks and the force of the southern Pacific on a blustery day. My brother and I played lots of cards!

There were other times, like when visiting Larnach Castle with my Nana, New Zealand's only castle, always a romantic historical place in my mind, but really only a big stately house high on a hill surrounded by trees, serving scones and tea. There was a tower, more of a stairwell really, but grand enough for untraveled me.

Otago harbor, like many kiwi harbors, originated when a massive volcano blew its top (and middle), and the hills are strewn with leftover rocks, which the stoic early farmers turned into quaint stone fences. Settled by hardy Scots who came from a similar climate, the region is rich with farmland, and framed by picturesque wild beaches and small towns. A view back to Dunedin on a sunny day is beautiful, and you can see where the dredges made a canal in the harbor. The small country road winds over the hills and there are no villages, only farmhouses, fields, and windbreaking hedges.

Map of Dunedin and the Otago Peninsula from http://www.visit-dunedin.co.nz/map.html