Reliving the past in Lawrence,Central Otago and whitebait fritters.......again

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Pulling up the blinds revealed another stunning Central Otago day although this morning there was a touch of frost visible on the grass with the tablet telling us the outside temperature was – 2C.

However another fine ,sunny day is in prospect and have an adventure into the unknown ahead of us as we head for Lawrence and some unravelling of more of Gretchen’s family history in the historic town of Lawrence.

A slightly earlier start after breakfast will mean we have enough time to do what we have to in the Lawrence district before we drive onto Dunedin for our final accommodation stop before we head home on Wednesday.

It has been a very pleasant time in Alexandra and our hosts C&M have done themselves proud and would score absolute top marks if we were to review our stay on Trip Advisor.

We hadn’t seen a lot of blossom on cherry or apricot trees on a mass scale since arriving in Central so with C&M leading the way to Lawrence in their own car they took us through Conroys Gully in the hope that the trees there might have been more in bloom.

However it looks like we were too late for some fruit trees and too early for others as there was only a limited display on the back road leading to Highway 8.

We still only encountered a very small amount of traffic as we followed the Clutha River with the feeling that despite a few rises in the road that we were gradually making our way down to sea level which we will finally reach when we make Dunedin later in the day.

The towns on the highway seem to have had a spruce up over recent years and even vacant shops, which is inevitable in small towns, looked tidier to the eye.

As you travel down the highway the surrounding farm land changes from wide open spaces to more concentrated paddocks and like Central everything was looking very green after what has been a reasonable winter and early spring growth.

Apart from the cherry and apricot orchards which line the highway It is all sheep country here and the dairy boom hasn’t as yet invaded the land flat enough to make money from cows.

Before long we entered the main street of Lawrence and with some checking on property ownership to do we pulled up alongside the local library where we found the lady on the front desk most helpful in searching the information we were looking for including putting Chris onto the phone to talk to another person in the Clutha District Council in Balclutha.

After a quick cup of tea and more retelling of times and visits to the ‘family’ property in the town over the years with the friend of Gretchen’ and Chris’ second cousin who had passed away recently, it was off to the house to check out some of the items and paintings that their grandmother had painted when she lived there after WW2 until she passed away in the late 1960’s.

What we viewed inside the 130+ year old house was a shock to the system and it was immediately clear that clean up of the inside was going to be extensive.

The paintings were still there as was a suitcase full of ‘things ‘that had belonged to their grandmother. Chris packed that into his car as we left to head back down town to check out a couple of photos of more relatives at the local museum before we had some lunch.

I had spied a sandwich board outside The Coach and Horses Inn advertising whitebait sandwiches for $10.Gretchen didn’t take any convincing that this was the best place for lunch and we ordered up the 3 whitebait patties and chips option, a real bargain at $25.C&M had the whitebait sandwich option.

We sat outside in the warm spring sun recollecting the scene inside the ‘family ‘house and figuring out what to do to tidy the place up for the property to be sold. It was not going to be an easy task.

With lunch over we drove onto Waitahuna Gully, another historic gold mining area, to try to locate 2 more sections that may be also still in the family given that Gretchen and Chris’s second cousin was paying rates on the land.

After the help from the lady at the Lawrence library it was easy to spot the two sections that used to be contiguous but part of the area had reverted to the Crown when the miner’s rights were not taken up by family who were the early settlers in the area presumably after the gold rush came to an end.

Gretchen bowled up to a house that sat on land between the two sections and had all that we had understood about the two titles confirmed by the current owner who had plans outlining the boundaries.

He gave us the OK to walk up the hill and view an old cottage that was still standing and that the ‘family ‘had lived in.

We parted company with C&M who returned home to Alexander while we drove on towards Clarkeville and Highway 1 north towards Dunedin.

All of a sudden we noticed the increased traffic volumes meaning that you had to ‘drive ‘to keep in the flow rather than cruise along seeing another car every 10 minutes like the last week had been.

It seemed to take no time at all to reach the outskirts of Dunedin and the Southern Motorway carrying us easily into the city past the vacant land that used to be the world famous rugby and cricket ground of Carisbrook.Nowadays the cricket is played at the University Oval and the rugby in the all weather indoor Forsyth Barr stadium, a facility Dunedin can be very proud of despite the cost to the Otago population. No other city in New Zealand has a stadium like this which can have a rugby game played under perfect conditions one night and host a rock concert the next day (well almost the next day)

Our accommodation here is at the Accor Leisure Lodge and we have a very well appointed room which we got at a bargain price that the European version of the BBA would be very pleased with.

We were ready for a good walk with plenty to talk about from the past few days as we struck out looking for a restaurant attached to a pub or similar.

We probably didn’t expect that we would have to walk all the way to the Octagon to find the Monteiths Brew House and enjoyed a delicious Pot Pie together with a pilsner and a black style beer each.

We had felt we were walking downhill and that it was an easy stroll as we headed down the road to the Octagon and that became real on our walk back home as we noticed we were a bit slower on the gradual uphill grade. Still the area we walked through was interesting as we got an insight to University student life in the city passing by their flats some of which had neatly typed notices in the front window announcing that that flat had been leased for the 2015 University year.

Tomorrow brings another very special occasion as we meet up with cousin Mary who I haven’t seen in probably 50+ years and my Aunty who I had at least spent some time with much more recent even if it was probably 10 years ago.

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Comments

[Leebee]

Lawrence!
Cant wait to see the video of Lawrence too! I am sure we will be hearing about your visit for many years to come! Will it be a full family mission down there for the pre-sale clean up?

[Whiskers]

Could perhaps put the video on YouTube under 'House of Horrors'heading.All volunteers we are sure would be welcome,bring your own respirator and rodent defence.