A Seriously Long Road Trip

Catch-up (Mid September, 2019)

While we were staying with our Southland family in Winton during September, I had the bright idea of doing a road trip to photograph the 'blossoms' in the fruit orchards of Central Otago. Never mind that it would be a 400km round trip and I was going by myself, it's no hardship at all as I love driving and I love being able to stop and take photos where and when I like. Not that David doesn't stop for me, but with the rig on the back it's often not possible or practical.

I left Winton at 7am in the cold pre-dawn light and enjoyed the quiet roads as I headed north passing through Dipton, Lumsden, Athol and Garston before making my first stop just north of Garston at my favourite woolshed...

...just as the sun reached over the nearby hills dispersing the fog that had settled in the valleys overnight.

Then it was on past Kingston around the edge Lake Whakatipu and up the 'Devils Staircase'; a winding cliff hugging road that is often bumper to bumper traffic with tour buses and tourist vehicles on the way to or coming back from Milford Sound (a 600km, 10hr round trip from Queenstown, and not one that should be undertaken lightly).

I drive through Frankton and head into the Kawarau Gorge. My next stop is at the historic 1880 Kawarau Suspension Bridge, the birth place of AJ Hackett's commercial bungy jumping. I stay long enough to watch a couple of jumpers; one extremely keen to do it, screaming and laughing with delight from the moment she stepped onto the platform, the other screaming and crying with fear!

Next stop in the gorge is at the Roaring Meg power station lookout. The Roaring Meg Stream tumbles down from the mountains above passing through two small power stations before exiting into the Kawarau River.

And the last stop in the gorge is at another favourite spot, a gravel pit that's a good stand-in for a lookout up the gorge.

And here's a comparison shot; I took this photo just a month later when spring was well on the way to turning the gorge a brilliant green.

My make-do lookout is just across the river from the replica Chinese village at Gees Flat, part of the Gold Fields Mining Centre. Sluiced terraces, tailing piles and the remains of huts can still be seen along the nearby steep edges of the gorge.

Once out the otherside of the gorge I'm approaching my blossom destination, Cromwell, 200km from home.  But after all that, there are not too many fruit trees in blossom in the orchards along the main highway, they have either finished flowering or the blooms are past their best. 

I can see several orchards smothered in pink blossoms away from the road but have no way of reaching them. Eventually I find a few trees and take some photos. I decide to carry on to Alexandra, 30kms away, another big fruit growing area in Central.

I grab a coffee & muffin from my favourite cafe in Cromwell, Fusee Rouge, and drive around to the Old Cromwell Town Lookout, above the confluence of the Kawarau and Clutha Rivers, to have them.

Then it's off through the Cromwell gorge towards Clyde...

...but not before I stop to check out the memorial plaque to the miners who first discovered gold here in the 1886 Dunstan gold rush.

I continue on to Clyde where I cross the Clutha River below the Clyde Dam bypassing Alexandra town centre because I know there are plenty of orchards along Earnscleugh Road on the opposite side of the river to town.

And I do find a few orchards in flower but I'm strangely not inspired, it's now the middle of the day and the light is harsh and I fail to get creative. Again I take a few shots and carry on my merry way east, I have plan...

I take a side road through Conroys Gully, it comes out at Butchers Dam on the highway heading east. I pass- what I think is a pear orchard in full blossom- just below a snow capped Old Man Range.

I stop at an unusually quiet Butchers Dam, there are no motorhomes or campervans at any of the freedom camping areas around the dam; it's just me and a few shags drying out on the nearby rocks on this chilly, blue sky, late winter's day.

Next stop is the old cob cottage at Fruitlands where some nosy cattle keep an eye on me from the paddock behind. Perhaps they think I have food for them. Much of the livestock in Southland and Otago is strip-fed over winter which means that after they have eaten the crop back to bare earth they have nothing to forage on while waiting for the next crop strip to be opened up or hay or silage to be delivered.

There are the remains of several other cob buildings nearby, this one looks quite substantial, it could have possibly been a homestead or a hotel.

I've decided to try the Roxburgh orchards for blossom. I'm driving further east and I know rather than retracing my steps, I can do a loop and head back to Winton by turning off at Ettrick, heading over the top of the hills past Heriot to Tapanui on to Gore and then across to Winton. 

Roxburgh has many roadside stalls which sell freshly picked fruit during the summer season, most are closed up as I pass by. Still more have disappeared altogether and others have been left to the elements while climbing creepers look to have swallowed a few too. 

There are a few orchards in blossom and this time they are more accessible...

...although once again the majority of them are white. The pink blossoms I do find are spent, pink must flower earlier than the white.

The afternoon is marching on but I do a quick calculation on distance & time and decide I'm going to carry on to Lawrence, 60kms further east from Roxburgh. There's another attraction that I'm aware of, it's only open for five weekends during spring and this just happens to be one of those weekends. But I do need to hurry along as the place I intend to visit closes at 4pm. 

The historic Hart's Black Horse Brewery at Weatherston, just outside Lawrence, is not only well known for it's ruins...

...it's also famous for the hundreds of thousands of daffodils that are planted over the nearby hillsides.

The daffodils were first planted in 1895 and it was thought that over 1 million bulbs were planted during the first few years, covering 10-15 acres of hillside behind the brewery. No expense was spared and  prices as high as £100 were paid for single bulbs from the Netherlands. Incredible when the average wage was only around £5.

People came from far & wide to see the daffodils when they were in bloom, the flowers were also picked by school children & sold for charity. In 1912 the first train excursions from Dunedin came; 2 trains of 13 carriages each organised by the Dunedin Horticultural Society.

More recently a charitable trust was formed with the aim of preserving and developing the site, which had fallen into disuse and disrepair. In 2005 the daffodil fields were once again opened up to public display, the first time in 50 years. After losing momentum the Trust was reformed in 2016 and with support and help from the people of Lawrence, the daffodil gardens were once again open for the public to view in 2017. 

The landowner prefers that the flowers aren't picked which in a way is a shame because I'm sure the money earnt from this would help in preserving the site, there is a $5 entry fee which goes to charity. 

I was pleased to have made the effort to visit, it had been on my 'must do, one day' list ever since we visited the brewery site in the middle of winter a few years ago and learnt of the daffodils. 

For those NZMCA members reading this, the property below the daffodil slopes is Paul & Glenice Kirkwood's Weatherston POP#8890, a delightful setting in the countryside and not too far from Lawrence & Gabriels Gully.

And that was it for me for the day, it was time to head home and with no dilly-dallying if I was to get there before dark. I drove 25kms back up the road to Raes Junction, turned left and headed south west towards Gore and then on to Winton arriving just as the sun dropped below the horizon. My 400km return trip to Cromwell ended up being a 500km round trip through Southland, Central Otago and Otago.

One last stop near Tapanui to photograph some little cuties

Gabriel's Gully, Lawrence

I got a bit ahead of myself with all the excitement of the Oyster Festival & the storm so I’m now stepping back a week or so to catch up on the blogs I missed from our last camping site at Grays Dam, Gabriel's Gully in Lawrence.

What a beautiful spot, it was very pretty with the trees at the end of their autumn colours & the grasses & reeds reaching right down to the pond’s edge.



Backlit trees at sunrise on the pond

It was a quite a small pond with just a few water fowl making it their home; a pair of coots, a couple of shags, a few welcome swallows and a lone female paradise duck that kept me awake for most of the first night. She was calling for her partner and I felt very sad for her, David found some fresh empty cartridge cases on the ground & we can only assume that her mate was shot by some lazy scumbag who couldn’t be bothered driving out of town to a legitimate place to go duck shooting.

Unlike other ducks, Paradise pair for life & she was calling for him all night & all the next day. Female paradise also have very loud calls. At one stage another pair flew in, the male ahead of his mate and the pond female got all excited doing a head bobbing swim all around him. Until the other female landed when all hell broke loose. After a good scrap between the females the other pair flew off & our female resumed her calls. It was with great relief when I got up on the third day to see that overnight a lone male had flown in and taken up residence with the female. She looked very happy swimming around the edge showing her new mate the best places to feed. Peace was restored to the pond.

Other than the quacking duck it was a very peaceful spot, we stayed for 3 nights and on each there were 2-3 other RVs sharing the clearing at the end of the track with us. Gabriel’s Gully is named after Gabriel Read who discovered gold there in May1861. This was the beginning of the Otago Gold Rush, by July there were 150 men working the gully and by September over 6000 people were camped throughout the gully in amongst the diggings protecting their small claims.

By the end of 1861 there were over 10,000 people on the goldfields, imagine 10,000 people, tents and dirt piles spread out down the gully shown in the photo below. Except that the valley floor is now a lot higher than it was back then. Water races from local rivers & dams (Grays Dam included) fed water into the area to wash the hillsides away into the sluice boxes to recover the gold. Gunpowder & dynamite were used to break up the rock. The tailings slowly filled up the valley floor.

Grays Dam is at the end of the bottom track that disappears out the left of the photo (a photo taken with my cell phone while on the 90 minute walk around the gully)

Across the gully and at the top right of the photo above is Blue Spur. Blue Spur settlement was originally at the head of Gabriel’s Gully on the flat but when that ground was needed for mining the township was moved to the top of the ridge away from the flooding & mining. The town prospered from 1864-1868 with two of every type of store to service the miners, a school opened in 1867  (it was closed in 1925) and during the 1880s when Blue Spur had a population of 500, there were over 200 pupils & five teachers. Today all that remains of Blue Spur are these two buildings one a residence & one the butchers shop.

Just one gully away from Gabriel’s was Weatherstons goldfield, discovered not long after Gabriels and claimed to have had more gold recovered in a four week period than Gabriels. Over 1500 miners flooded into Weatherstons within a few days which led onto Weatherstons being known as the gayest & noisiest town on the goldfields. It also suffered the fastest reduction of miners when news  came through that gold had been discovered near Dunstan further inland.

Today Weatherstons is well known for its mass plantings of daffodils and 100 year old rhododendron bushes along with the ruins of the 1884 Black Horse Brewery. The brewery was once Otago’s most successful provincial brewery and that was during prohibition. In 1923  the brewing rights were purchased by NZ Breweries, the brewery closed down & the workers offered work at Speights Brewery in Dunedin.

On one of the information boards was this photo of the ladies pushing for prohibition, looking at some of those faces I doubt anybody would want to give them a kiss anyway!

The daffodils were first planted in 1895 and it was thought that over 1 million bulbs were planted during the first few years covering 10-15 acres of the hillside beside the brewery. No expense was spared and  prices as high as £100 were paid for single bulbs from the Netherlands. Incredible when the average wage was only around £5. People came from far & wide to see the daffodils when they were in bloom, the flowers were also picked by school children & sold for charity. In 1912 the first train excursions from Dunedin arrived; 2 trains of 13 carriages each organised by the Dunedin Horticultural Society. In 2005 the daffodil fields were once again opened up to public display, the first time in 50 years.

It's a pity we visited the ruins at the beginning of winter, the site didn’t look that attractive with bare trees, wet & muddy ground and overgrown abandoned buildings although the lovely red of the hawthorn berries added a bit of interest & colour.

And I was finally able to grab a shot of another New Zealand native that not too many people would have seen or know about. This is a Brown Creeper (Pipipi- can you guess the sound they make?) and they are actually quite common throughout the South Island but are very hard to see (and photograph) as they flock & move quite fast through the tree canopy feeding and calling to each other. Against the light of the sky they could be mistaken for sparrows. This isn’t a great photo but at least I have a record until I can get a better one!

In an old farm yard near Weatherston I spotted this; I wonder where the lion escaped to……

And once again after an afternoon of exploring we got home in time for me to catch some reflections-

And finally I need to add the photo that is the blog header at the moment (it'll be gone soon). I also sent this photo off the NZMCA for their "I Love Winter" photo competition and they made it their Facebook header.......

.......which actually replaced my Lake Dunstan storm photo!