Clyde - Central Otago

Cromwell - the home of the big fruit and big houses!

On Monday we drove up to Clyde to stay with David and Catherine. The road was slow going as far as Gore, due to the amount of traffic and the single lane road. After a restorative cup of coffee in Gore I told Walter to take Highway 94 which turned out to be the road to Lumsden instead of the road to Alexandra. After a little discussion, we turned around and went back to Gore. How can you take the wrong road when there are only three to choose from – Dunedin, Lumsden and Alexandra/Clyde! What a relief to finally arrive in Clyde. After lunch we went for a 12 km walk along the river Clutha, passing old gold mining sites along the way. This walk is the 150^th anniversary walking/cycling trail between Alexander and Clyde. The walk was good for our waistline!

The area here, Otago Central, is inland and barren, extremely cold in winter and extremely hot in summer. Since settlement and much irrigation there are lots of beautiful green pastures. The area is also covered in wild thyme which is currently flowering and looks absolutely beautiful. The thyme was harvested here and was quite an important industry here years ago.

Clyde is also the beginning of the Rail Trail which is a 150 km track designed for walkers, mountain bikers and horse riders. It used to be a railway line. It travels through valleys, tunnels and over old bridges. It is extremely popular with both NZ’s and tourists and is in constant use. There are many interesting places to visit along the way and plenty of hotels and accommodation which were there initially to service the railway. It has certainly brought life into the area. We drove on the road which crosses over the track at various points and certainly looks very impressive. Mountain biking is very popular in throughout NZ and David is a very keen mountain cyclist who has biked on many of the tracks around here.

We visited the museum which was full of old machinery; farm, hospital (an iron lung), rabbiting, thyme plus old cars and horse drawn wagons. Fascinating! The old railway station was still there with a short piece of railway line in front, which looked very weird and you expected a steam train to pull in at any time.

There is a huge dam in Clyde, so the gorge behind it is now a lake which spreads out to Cromwell. There was a lot of controversy about this dam, way back in the 1970’s but it went ahead anyway. Still the water is well used recreationally and does look very beautiful.

We travelled out to a few small settlements. Naseby has lots of old buildings but is mainly now known for its curling rinks. They even held a world event here. There is also an outside luge which is used during winter time. We learnt all about how to curl but I don’t think I will take it up. The Royal Hotel was a great place to stop and no resident ghosts.

Ophir claims it has the largest range of temperatures (35 degrees above and 22 degrees below).

We had lunch (pies) in a pub in St Bathans that claims to have resident ghosts, which we did not meet, thank goodness. St Bathans was an old gold mining town of 2000 people and 13 pubs. There are now 4 residents and a dog.

We looked at the strange hills where the gold was sluiced out and the blue lake which is all that is left.

We also travelled to Bannockburn, the home of wine production but once another gold mining area.

As to wine making, we visited ‘The Big Picture’ which has a visual presentation showing six wineries and you get to taste the wine from each of them. There is also a ‘smelling’ room in order to learn about the different aromas in the wine. All very interesting but you do wonder if they cheat a bit on what they add to the wine.