There's a New Zealand town where there's three times as many houses as residents, where the population has fallen from 5000 to 90, but there's still two pubs and where summer and winter sports are starting a town revival, underneath the sweep of the tourist radar.
OK, there are probably dozens of these towns, but last weekend we went to Naseby in Central Otago. It used to be a gold mining town in the early 1900s, with 5000 miners huddled on the windswept Maniototo plain, suffering through the worst winters and the hottest summers in all of New Zealand. After the gold ran out foresters planted a large forest, pretty much the only greenery on the Maniototo plain, and the town of Naseby slid down to its current population between 70 and 90, depending on who you ask.
We'd both had pretty busy weeks work-wise and the weather forecast for Dunedin wasn't great, so we wanted to get out of town. Central Otago is pretty close, the weather is renowned for being better than the coast, so we organised some gear for a fishing weekend and set out at about midday. At the last minute we threw the bikes on the car in case we wanted to explore. In the end we decided to head for Naseby, rather than Ranfurly or Middlemarch, as we'd heard stories of some great mountain-biking.
It's a nice town. Tucked away inside a mixed pine forest, on the edge of the Maniototo Plain with the Mt Ida and Kakanui ranges rising abruptly behind the town, Naseby has a quiet, soothing feeling. '2000 feet above worry level' is how the town bills itself. We camped at the
Larchview Campground and wandered down to the
Royal Hotel to relax for the afternoon until it was time to go fishing. Around Naseby several irrigation dams have been stocked with brown trout and are open to the public for fishing year round. Other dams have another purpose that we'll get to later.
First off we went to Coalpit Dam (above), primarily because we could find it. It's another beautiful spot, but it was drizzling on and off while we were there and the fish weren't cooperating.
After a few hours we went back to the Royal Hotel for dinner and to sit by the fire and watch Cantebury demolish Auckland in the rugby. We ended up chatting to one of the locals (about 1.1% of the population), a guy named Darren who claimed to be member of
NZ's national curling team. This isn't terribly surprising, Naseby is the home of curling in NZ. Several of the dams freeze over in the extreme winters and when the ice gets to about 4 inches thick teams from all over Otago decend to play curling. Naseby also has an artificial ice-rink and is also in the process of building a $1m indoor curling arena. That's right - a town of 90 people has a million-dollar indoor curling centre. Go figure.
Anyway, Darren told us about this dam he knew about.
Out along the road towards the pass, then turn off at the road that used to be Curling Dam Rd, can't remember what it is now, but there's a letter box. Turn left there, then again, then go a few hundred metres. You'll catch fish there for sure... So we went there the next morning. And sure enough, we caught a few fish. Nothing huge, but it was a serene place, with trout rising lazily out of the reach of our lures, grey-purple mountains behind and the gold Maniototo mountains rolling away into the distance. The local run holder came down for a chat - like so many of the farmers in the district his family had owned the place for over 100 years - then he headed off to dig boulders out of his paddocks. We released all the fish we'd caught and headed back into town for breakfast.
After breakfast we jumped on our bikes at the campground and headed into the forest. Mountain-bikers are starting to rave about Naseby. There's a bike shop in the town and bike hires and guiding are also available - it's something of a boom industry, by Naseby's fairly limited standards of "boom". About 100m from our tent we connected with the Naseby water-race and the singletrack alongside it. The water-race was built back during the goldmining era to supply water for sluicing operations. Smaller water races had been built previously, bringing water from up to 20km away, but the behaviour of the private operators had lead to disagreement. Eventually the government stepped in and built the Naseby water race which brings water from
120km away, falling at a steady gradient of only 1:503. The pathway alongside it is now beautiful, smooth, rolling singletrack - apparently you can follow it as far as St Bathan's, 65km away.
Rochelle following the water-race singletrack.We followed this for a few kms, until it mysteriously disappeared into a culvert, crossing the road and not finding the water-race, we picked up a different bit of single track and meandered through a stand of larch trees til we got to Hoffman's Dam and the
fantastic singletrack that surrounds the dam.
Rochelle examining the trail map at Hoffman's Dam.After Hoffman's we headed on to Coalpit Dam, taking some fairly adventurous route-choices. A
brief stop at Coalpit to watch the fish rising, then back past Hoffman's Dam, through the cemetery, then back to Naseby. On the evidence of this rise there's a thousand more riding options to take around Naseby - for those from Canberra it's like an enormous version of what Stromlo/Green Hills was like pre-fires.
We packed up and headed for lunch in the art-deco town of Ranfurly, then headed across the Maniototo for a stint of fishing on the Taieri River near Waipiata. Kieran landed another small trout and Rochelle got the biggest fish of the week, a good sized yellow perch, both of which we released. In the end we called it a nil-all draw between fish and humans, but we'll be back to the Maniototo pretty soon for more fishing, biking, relaxing and, come winter, some curling.
Hey there - if you've been reading this blog, drop us a line in the comments section and let us know who you are. We're intrigued to know who, if anyone, is reading this.
Cheers K&R
