Advertisement
Published: April 29th 2008
Edit Blog Post
Cromwell
Bannockburn Hotel CROMWELL
Our home for the next 4 days in Cromwell was the Police Holiday Home , as the weather had turned a little bit cooler it was nice to be out of the caravan and staying in a home. It was intended to be a relaxing time but we did manage to get in some local 4WD trips and a trip to Queenstown.
The new Cromwell town is situated on Lake Dunstan which is a man made lake as a result of the Clyde Hydro Dam damming the Clutha and Kawarau Rivers. The original Cromwell town was flooded by the dam and the new town was built many meters higher up on the flats. Its a great small modern town with a nice center mall. Nearby the Bannockburn sluicings are evidence of the fact this once was a gold town, in fact when the new town was built and the old town demolished a very large hole was dug under what had been the town as this was one area that there still was gold to be found. Now days Cromwell is very well known for it's stone and pip fruit growing and a new kind of goldrush
Cromwell
Old Bannockburn Post Office is spreading across the hills in the form of vineyards. While we were there the harvest was beginning and the bird netting that covered 100's of acres on vines was being removed to start the picking, many of the vineyards hand pick the grapes.
We had heard that the old Bannockburn Hotel served a nice evening meal so we dug deep in our packs to find something a bit dressier than shorts and jandals and enjoyed a lovely dinner out.
We didn't tackle anything to serious in the way of 4WD while we were in Cromwell, though one trip we did do was the Hawkburn Road over the Cairnmuir Mountains from Bannockburn to the township of Clyde on the Clutha River.
It was an easy trip, though very rutted on the steep descent from the Ranges to Clyde. We stopped on a high point to take photo's and as you walked around the rock bluff the smell of wild thyme was strong as your feet crushed the stubby wee plants surviving in this dry rocky environment. The thyme was brought to the goldfields by the miners over 150 years ago and is now considered a
Cromwell
Hawksburn Road over the Cairnmuir Mountains to Clyde weed by the farmers. At flowering time the paddocks are covered in a pink colour.
We stopped for lunch at the Clyde Hydro Dam and then head of towards Alexandra with the intention of getting up onto "Old Man Range", we had read about and seen many photographs of other 4WD'ers who had traveled this route and taken photo's at "Old Man Rock" .
One of the bonus's of this trip is that just after you leave SH8 at Fruitlands on Symes Road you pass Mitchell's cottage. This is an exceptional example of craftsmanship and is is listed as a Category 1 Historic place. As such, it is one of the best surviving examples of the stonemason's craft. It was built by gold miner, Andrew Mitchell, for his brother John and sister-in-law Jessie. Andrew began the project in 1880 and used local stone, using the stone masonry techniques that he had learned from his father at home in the Shetland Islands. Andrew also built several other buildings in the Fruitlands district, known then as Bald Hill Flat and prior to that as Speargrass Flat. Building the cottage became a long-term project; it wasn't completed until 1904.
Cromwell
Looking towards Clyde and Alexandra in the distance from the Cairnmuir Mountains in the meantime John and Jessie Mitchell's lived in a corrugated iron cottage, where they began what was to become a family of 10 children.
Unfortunately after visiting the cottage the weather started to deteriorate, we climbed on up Symes Road but the cloud become very thick to the point where we could only see about a few meters in front of us. We abandoned the trip and both agreed that we must return and get to the top of "Old Man Range" 😊
Advertisement
Tot: 0.086s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 10; qc: 35; dbt: 0.0473s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
neil
non-member comment
Amazing stuff
Thankyou Murray and Cheryl for your travel tales,recon you should write a book,we will be hooking on the caravan come October and heading South and following some of your tales,with retirement we can now enjoy a little more time on our trips.Great Pictures and stories.Cheers Mate"s