Cavalcade 2017 - Omakau, Part 1; The Approach

Catch-up

We've now in Ranfurly after an fabulous 12 days at Poolburn Dam. We had a great time relaxing and doing a little exploring (I won't mention the fishing). We left yesterday morning and had a great run down the Ida Valley to Ranfurly where we sweltered through the afternoon on what must have been the hottest day Central Otago has seen this summer. 

I know there are a few people out there waiting for the blog posts on the Cavalcade; I'll post a link to my Flickr Cavalcade album at the bottom of Part 2 if you'd like to see even more photos (I took plenty!). And don't forget to click on these photos to enlarge them, click your back arrow to get back to the blog.

We left our spot on the banks of the Manuherikia River Thursday afternoon and headed to the Omakau Racecourse where the local NZMCA Clutha Valley branch were in charge of organising the motorhome parking in the centre oval of the racecourse. 

This year was the 25th Goldfields Cavalcade, and riders, walkers and wagons had spent the week riding across some of Otago's high-country properties heading towards the finish at Omakau. Nine trails- 3 walking, 4 riding and 2 wagon- set out from various locations and were due to arrive at the racecourse for the grand parade on Saturday. Each year the Cavalcade finishes in a different town and this year was Omakau's first visit (next year it's Owaka in the Catlins).

I'd checked out the trail itineraries hoping to maybe locate one or two to photograph as they approached Omakau but unfortunately most of them were across private land and it would have been hard to locate them anyway, as there weren't any times. Obviously. 

One trail started at Lake Ohau, one at Kurow, one in the Lindis Valley and one at the Stix in the Maniototo. The 'Heavy Wagon' trail was crossing the Dunstan Mountains on the Thomson Gorge Track and setting up camp at the base of the track, just up the road from the racecourse. 

I knew where that was, we'd crossed the track in the ute 18 months ago, so I headed up to the track later in the afternoon. Unfortunately they had already arrived! Bugger.

I knew another trail was due to pass through the historic town of St Bathans on Friday morning so the next morning we headed off, taking the back road past the end of Thomsons Track just in case....the wagons were on the move! 

This stage coach will be very familiar to many, it's usual parking spot is outside the Otira Hotel in Arthurs Pass.

No kidding...

I have a little confession to make, I'm not sure but these wagons might have been sent on a wild goose chase. I'd read that they were going to visit Matakanui on Friday (aka Tinkers- check that link for an awesome old settlement). 

When the first riders, on horses, came around the corner from Thomsons Track, they stopped and looked around and called out to me, who had just climbed out of the ute to take photos. "Which way?". I turned my hands up in a gesture of  'God knows' and then pointed up the road towards Matakanui, saying 'Maybe that way?' (based on what I'd read) and expecting them to ask more questions. Instead they cantered off, up the Matakanui road. 

And everyone else followed... (Omakau is down that road behind).

Later in the day, I saw the heavy wagons camped at the racecourse. Which got me wondering, perhaps they were in fact, headed to the racecourse. Oh well, they got to do a little tiki-tour on the way. 

A couple of the trails stopped for a night at Drybread, in the farm yard right next door to the old Drybread school which is now one of the farm buildings.

We carried on towards St Bathans, meeting a dejected looking guy standing beside his horse and light wagon, as we turned onto the St Bathans road. We stopped to talk to him and he told us he'd detoured, his horse was pulling and his shoulder was giving him gyp. He'd been down to the pub at Becks on the main road but it was closed. He told us he'd now take the direct route towards the racecourse and we left him to it.

We carried on up the road and around the next corner we found one of the rider trails heading towards us, hmmm.....one of the trails that had just passed through St Bathans! Late again.

We pulled over and waited for them to pass...

We called out pleasantries to each other and I found out that this was one of the longer stretches of seal that they'd ridden. 

They were heading onto a farm station shortly and then along the bottom of the Dunstan Mountains to Drybread.

They were stretched out like Brown's cows...

...enjoying the cooler temperatures...

...after a stinking hot day, yesterday. 

We carried onto St Bathans, although now I knew we'd missed both trails passing through the settlement- I'd seen photos the day before of the first trail. It would have been great to photograph the riders outside the historic old buildings but we had to make do with their squashed calling cards instead. Poo-ew!!

This is once again familiar territory, we stayed for a few days at the DOC camp at St Bathans during winter and had the whole place to ourselves- actually a bit like today, not a soul in sight...wait some people on the lake edge and a tent in the willows. The Blue Lake, aka the Glory Hole, actually looked blue today instead of the emerald green it was on our last visit. But with a breeze rippling the surface, it was nowhere near as stunning.

We headed back towards the main road and home to Omakau, stopping to take a photo of the historic White Horse Hotel at Becks. I wanted a better photo of the hotel than I had, the last one was taken on a dull day. And what should we spy tied up in the paddock next door to the new White Horse Hotel? The horse that pulled. His master making the most of a bad situation. Medicinal of course.

Back at the racecourse the numbers of RVs had increased tenfold...

To be continued...The Grand Parade

Drybread & Tinkers

That got your attention. I bet you wondered what on earth Drybread & Tinkers were and what they had to do with a blog post. Drybread and Tinkers are the names of two tiny settlements in the foothills of the Dunstan Mountains. We took a small detour to check them out on our way to drive the Thomson Gorge track over the mountain range. I was going to just add a couple of photos to the beginning of the Thomson Gorge blog but when I looked at all the photos I couldn’t choose, so now they have their own post.

Legend goes that the name Drybread came after a wary prospector, when asked how he was doing, replied “Dry bread, seldom better” (sounds a bit far fetched to me). I found another explanation which sounds more feasible -

Locals tell of gold prospector Charles Wise, who was active along the foot of the Dunstan Ranges during 1863-64. His party had a nanny goat, whose milk was used to soften their hard, stale bread supplies. When the men found alluvial gold at the diggings, there was obviously cause for celebration. However, the goat had gone dry and the best they could rustle up was a feast of dry bread. So Drybread it became – and Drybread it remains today.

Few buildings remain and those that have survived are now used as farm buildings including the Drybread School which is now part of a woolshed complex. I wonder at the stories these old buildings could tell.

Not too far down the road is the Drybread Cemetery, we wait for a small herd of cattle to pass us by, and then turn into a farm drive and open the gate, another property we feel like we’re trespassing on as we drive past an abandoned farm cottage and through a flock of sheep who insist on running ahead of us no matter what speed we do, to try and get them to veer off to the side.

I have decided that sheep have certainly earnt the saying ‘just like sheep’. I really do think there’s not that much grey matter between their ears. I did laugh this morning though, when we were towing the 5th-wheeler past a huge bare paddock full of merino sheep and they started running towards us and along the fence, not away from the fence line like usual when we ‘thunder’ past. They thought we had the silage trailer on the back, the poor things!

Anyway, I digress. There was another gate at the end of the track and there across the paddock on top of a rise overlooking the Manuherikia Valley with the Dunstan Mountains as a backdrop was the cemetery.

A cemetery that is still in use with two new concrete strips down one end for the placement of headstones. Many of the old plots had new memorial stones, their original ones having been lost, broken or in fact never having had one. Many of the historic cemeteries we’ve been visiting have been re-plotted and re-stoned, obviously descendants and historians are making sure New Zealand’s pioneer past is not lost forever.

Out next stop is Tinkers, well in fact Tinkers was the old name for this settlement, it is now called Matakanui. It is thought that Tinkers got it’s name from the tinsmiths (known as tinkers- remember the childhood rhyme ‘tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor…’ Apparently the tinkers abandoned their trade of repairing pots and pans and instead, used them for washing gold. Another explanation, and I like this one the best, is that when miners were asked how they were doing, they responded ‘Just tinkering about’. Just like our friends the whitebaiters, ‘just enough for a meal’.

Matakanui really is an isolated settlement, hidden from the rest of the world at the end of a short winding hill road, tucked in under the mountains behind. There are a number of mud brick buildings in various states of disrepair on the small loop road including the old Matakanui General Store that originally began life as a goldfields dancehall.

Across the road from the store and looking like a giant gun pointing directly at visitors as they drive up the road is a water sluicer from the nearby Deep Lead mine (now flooded) whose 80m shaft was sunk in the late 1890s.

The former Newton Tavern was rebuilt using the old stone walls of the original hotel.

Once again, most of the remaining old mudbrick buildings are being used as farm buildings and many seem to be only hanging on by a thread. There looks to be just a couple of households living here now and there’s not a chance that you can slip in and out of the settlement without being noticed, the place is at first deadly quiet. It wouldn’t have surprised me if a few tumbleweeds had come rolling down the street to meet us. Instead the silence is broken when a row of farm dogs at the back of the mudbrick stables sets up cacophony of barking and chain rattling and refuse to stop until we drive off.

Just down the road is another original building, Tinkers School with it’s rooftop bell tower a rare sight. Similar to the Drybread Hotel building, it looks like the school has been used as a woolshed at some stage, it has rectangle holes cut into the walls down low.

In the paddock in front of the school building is an antiquated looking contraption. I wonder how many know what this could be. It is in fact an old chaff cutter. It’s a pity it’s not sitting under cover at an early settlers museum or something similar.

Like the buildings it’ll soon fall apart and disappear, another slice of history gone forever.