Author: Ian

Pineapple Track: Information

In Leith Valley, where Otago’s first industry – sawmilling – is reputed to have started about the 1860s, is the start of the old Pineapple Track.
Originally, it was named Ross Track, after Archibald Hilson Ross, who owned most of the land in the vicinity. In the early 1920s, Mr Oscar Balk, first president of the Otago Tramping Club, led parties of trampers up this route. At the top of a rather steep section, the parties would stop to rest and often refresh themselves with a tin of pineapple. This tin was sometimes left hanging on a tree or fence, and the track came to be called the Pineapple Track.
The line of the Pineapple Walkway has deviated from the original track in places to provide more scenic variation.
The original vegetation of the area has been modified as a result of early milling, burning and stock grazing, but remnants of the milled species (podocarps) still remain. Rimu, miro, totara and matai are found in isolated pockets, mainly in damp gullies. Even so, the overall distribution of plant species retains some semblance of natural order with the larger forest trees growing at lower altitudes. Podocarp broad-leaved forest type occurs with shrub species which grade out into Dracophyllum shrub land and ultimately tussock grassland communities on the summit area.
Some common plants: fuchsia, pepper tree, lemonwood, broadleaf, totara, five’finger, wineberry, lancewood, Muehlenbeckia, Dracophyllum, Coprosma, Hebe, and wild spaniard tussock.
THere are many varieties of birds in the bush areas where there is an ample food supply to sustain many nectar-, berry-, and insect-eating native birds.
Some of these are: New Zealand pigeon, bellbird, fantail, tomtit, brown creeper, tui, silvereye, rifleman and pipit.

Grahams Bush Botanical Information (1988)

A top-down description:
From across the Old Mount Cargill Road from the Organ Pipes track entrance, the top section of the walk is very steep, but now relieved by an excellent set of steps. For much of the descent into the gully the walk passes through dense stands of manuka and kanuka. Both have small pointed leaves. Most of the trees are of even size and height. This implies they are even aged and grew up at about the same time. Equally important is the fact that no young kanuka is growing beneath the adult trees. In places many other species of native trees and fauna are growing. This is because kanuka seed needs light to germinate and not enough filters through the canopy. Other seed such as lemonwood is not so light-demanding. These young plants will eventually grow up through the kanuka to become a new forest canopy.
The widespread dominance of the blotchy-leaved pepperwood tells us more of the forest’s history. It is very unpalatable to stock and generally thrives when stock eats out the other plant species. Until recently stock have been common in this bush.

It is also interesting to note how dry this slope is. This stands in sharp contrast to the cooler gully at the bottom of the hill. A bridge spans the creek here, about 20-30 minutes from the carpark. Beyond this are more mature patches of forest.

Fuchsia (with orange bark) predominates in this valley, while little kanuka can been seen. A good variety of ferns thrive here in the moist conditions, the most distinctive of which are the tall tree ferns. The one with milky-coloured frond stalks is the silver tree fern.

Just 2-3 minutes beyond the bridge is a clearing. From it the hill just descended is apparent. More of the story becomes obvious. The whole hillside is of an even aged kanuka. Above nearer the road one sees old macrocarpas.

Kanuka and manuka often thrive after fire or in areas cleared either by humans or nature. Could it be that this hillside was once cleared, and that maybe the macrocarpas indicate an old homestead site – a base for a farm now abandoned and reverting to native forest?

In such a role kanuka is a successional species; i.e. it thrives after disturbance allows light into the forest floor. In time it gets over-topped by other forest species and becomes replaced with more mature forest.

An example of this mature forest that once covered this hill and what will once again be seen is 10 minutes further down the track.

One cannot fail to be impressed by the huge boles in the rimus (with hammer bark) and miros (with soft green leaves and dark mossy trunks). These giants are survivors of a once extensive podocarp forest that covered most of the Dunedin district. Fortunately their poor shape precluded their being logged for timber and consequently they now serve as a seed source to re-vegetate the reserve in podocarps. The dominant trees forming the forest canopy in this area are kanuka.

A second small patch of these trees occurs a little below the second bridge. Beyond them further evidence of the impact of humans on the area is seen – hawthorns growing in the forest! These exotic trees from Europe add a new shade of green to the forest each spring. Being deciduous, like so many continental trees, they lose their leaves in summer and grow a new set in spring. In New Zealand the only common tree with this habit is the fuchsia – the orange shaggy-bark trees. Like kanuka, fuchsia is one of those successional species. Their roles are very similar but they fill them in different locations – fuchsia preferring damper cooler sites.

– Adapted from DoC hard-copy information sheet

Town Belt Article

The Town Belt is a green belt which surrounds the centre of the New Zealand city of Dunedin. Covering a total of over 200 hectares (490 acres), it extends around three sides of the city’s centre at a distance from it of some 1-3 km (1-2 mi) in a broad 7 km (4 mi) crescent from the Oval at Kensington in the south through the suburbs of Mornington, City Rise, Belleknowes, Roslyn, Maori Hill, Prospect Park, Glenleith, Woodhaugh, The Gardens and Dunedin North and the slopes of Signal Hill. The fourth side of the central city is bounded by the Otago Harbour.

One of the world’s oldest green belts, the Town Belt was planned in Scotland at the time of the advent of the Otago settlement in 1848.[1] Residential areas outside the belt became separate boroughs, and were not amalgamated with Dunedin until much later. The town belt now forms a break between the city’s inner and outer suburbs. The belt was originally a combination of native bush and scrubland, but is now largely replanted forest and open parkland. Many species of plant can be found in the belt, including tree fuchsia, lemonwood, lancewood, manuka, and broadleaf, and the forested area is home to many species of birds, including some uncommon and endangered species such as the kereru, eastern rosella, bellbird, tomtit, tui, rifleman, morepork, and shining cuckoo, and kotare.

A long, narrow road, Queens Drive, winds along much of the length of the belt and provides easy access to it for Dunedinites. Queens Drive is linked to many of the city’s main streets, including Stuart Street and High Street. Numerous walkways lead through the bush and parks, and the belt is a popular recreation area for Dunedinites.

The Town Belt includes many open areas and parks, including the Kensington Oval, Dunedin Southern Cemetery, Montecillo Ground, Unity Park, Mornington Ground, Jubilee Park, Belleknowes Golf Course, Robin Hood Park, Littlebourne Ground, Prospect Park, Woodhaugh Gardens, the North Ground, Dunedin Botanic Gardens, Dunedin Northern Cemetery, Logan Park, and the University Oval.

Notable buildings and structures in the belt include Moana Pool, Olveston, Otago Boys’ High School, and the Beverly-Begg Observatory.

– From Wikipedia.

North Taieri (Wairongoa) Saline-Chalybeate Springs

NORTH TAIERI (WAIRONGOA) SALINE -CHALYBEATE SPRINGS.
A NEW DUNEDIN ATTRACTION.

By Murray Aston,

My rambles one day last week took me to a most delightful neighbourhood, and included a visit to the Wairongoa medicinal springs, a short account of which from my pen may be acceptable to readers of the Witness.

Some six months ago Mr Alexander Thomson, the well-known aerated water manufacturer of Dunedin, acquired by purchase 160 acres of land, taking the precaution to include the whole of the watershed so as to render any danger of contamination to the wells by undesirable neighbours an impossibility. The property is near the North Taieri township, and in the vicinity of Salisbury, the seat of Mr Donald Reid. It is distant some three and a-half miles from Wingatui or Mosgiel; but there is a flag station only a few minutes’ walk from it on the Central Otago railway. The wells are located in a gully of most romantic and picturesque loveliness. The waving toi-tois, the soft-hued ti-tri, the fern, now all changing in different shades of delightful colour, combined with tho blue distance of the mountain ranges, enchant and sooth the mind. Lizards of different species and colour darted across the path; small flocks of goldfinches, remarkable for the brilliancy of their plumage and erratic flight, momentarily arrested the attention, and huge butterflies lazily sunning themselves in their gorgeous attire lent an additional charm to the situation. A particularly clear and beautiful stream which runs through the property must not be forgotten, and trout are not an altogether unknown quantity therein. A few years ago the busy gold miner, I heard, was making good money on this same little creek, but his operations entailed serious inconvenience to the owners of the land, so he was stopped.

I found a large building for bottling waters nearly completed, with dwelling house, stabling, &c, and a fine new steam engine and boiler already on the premises. The principal (sic) well has been enclosed in a handsome red brick tower with white facings, on concrete base, the architecture being of the Tudor period with a particularly attractive castellated roof. Each spring, of which there are several, has been followed to its source in the bed-rock, which is white conglomerate of pure, crystalline formation, then concreted to the surface and bricked over. One well however has been left open for the use of visitors, of whom 30 or 40 at a time, many of them bicyclists are frequently gathered together, the proprietor relying on the well-known good sense of the public not to abuse the privilege by any unthinking act of larrikinism. The various springs contain different qualities and degrees of strength, but the water in each may, experts say, be described in scientific language as saline chalybeate. The early settlers, 30 years ago, were not slow in discovering the medicinal properties of the springs, and anaemic persons, dyspeptics, children with worms, rheumatics and people over-worked or suffering from the evil effects of dissipation are said to have derived great benefit from the Wairongoa waters. While I was at the place a man with a sack on his back approached me, and in the course of conversation stated that he had just walked out from Dunedin, 10 miles distant, for a supply of water. His sack held three large stone bottles, and having filled them it was his intention to walk back. He had been a dyspeptic, he said, and the doctors could do nothing for him; but a friend had advised him to try these waters and in one week he had derived benefit, and now, in three weeks, he was walking 20 miles in a day for the precious liquid.

It is the opinion of experts that the water travels a great distance— viz., from the Maungatoka mountain—the “Boulders Hill” of the settlers; and that it comes under enormous pressure is evidenced by the large volume of carbonic acid gas it contains which it is the intention of the proprietor to collect as it rises to the surface of the wells, store in gasometers, and utilise the supply for re-aerating the water; and a noteworthy factor in connection with the supply is that it never varies in quantity either in the driest or wettest season; and it is believed to be inexhaustible. Mr Thomson thinks that in a month from the present time he will be able to deliver supplies to those in need of it. He expects to do a large trade with the public through druggists and will supply them in syphons as well as in the ordinary bottles. The price, moreover, will be sufficiently low to bring the water within reach of persons of moderate means.

I need hardly add that I partook of water from the various springs, and I experienced great pleasure therefrom, as the effect was distinctly exhilarating to the system, and for hours afterwards I experienced a most agreeable flavour on my palate. I venture, therefore, to predict a brilliant future for the North Taieri district. Ere long a big hotel on the spot will become a necessity, and Dunedin should prove an attractive centre for tourists from all parts by reason of what I firmly believe to be its invaluable springs at Wairongoa.

– Extracted from Papers Past, Otago Daily Times, 6 April 1895, page 7.

Lake Mahinerangi and Waipori

Waipori Monday
Waipori Monday
Waipori/Mahinerangi
Waipori/Mahinerangi

Extracted from David Still:

THE WAIPORI GOLDFIELD: A Brief History

Gold discovered at Waipori

On 17th December 1861, [a certain] O’Hara and his mates reported a new gold field at Waipori. … and on the 20th December 1861 … about 400 miners working on the banks of the Lammerlaw Creek and its tributaries. Soon there were tents and some stores scattered all along the creek, and the entire population was calculated to be about 2,000.

The Township of Waipori

The place called the township was a wretched site, perched on the cone of two small hills, difficult of ascent and limited in area. Five miles further down at the junction of the Waipori River and Lammerlaw Creek there began to form another township on level ground near the old road and ford, and so the town (first known as Waipori Junction) was born.

The School

Mr. James Edward Wilson was appointed as teacher in 1866 and later under his real name of James Payne Baker. … In 1911, the school was reduced to one teacher from then on. …  and in 1925 Catherine O’Reilly.

 

Lake Mahinerangi is a small lake formed when a dam was built on the Waipori River for hydroelectric generation.

The Waipori hydro-electric scheme includes a network of four dams and power stations and produces a maximum output of 84 MW.
The lake itself, was named after Olive Mahinerangi Barnett, the daughter of William Barnett, mayor of Dunedin 1911-1912.

Lake Mahinerangi

The tributaries of the Waipori River are in the Lammerlaw Range. The river descends gradually until the Waipori Gorge, where it suddenly drops 222 metres in approximately 4,000 metres. Which makes the gorge an ideal site for a hydro-electric scheme.

Lake Mahinerangi was formed by a 20.4 metre high dam, with work beginning in 1927 and completed in 1931, with a powerhouse of 3,000 kW capacity. The new lake submerged the mining township of Waipori and mining interests had actively opposed the building of the dam as Waipori Flat was still being actively mined. In 1920, the Dunedin City Corporation Empowering Act was successfully pushed through Parliament to enable the use of the Waipori River as a hydro-electric reservoir.

The Mahinerangi Dam was increased to its final height of 33.5 metres in 1946. By 1955, two more generating stations had been built downstream from the original powerhouse. There have been further replacements and additions to generating capacity between the 1960s and 1980s.
Ref: http://www.geocaching.com/geocache/GC40XTJ_lake-mahinerangi-otago?guid=2a93463a-0c4d-40e0-a083-d45b514a7aa6

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Title: The Cyclopedia of New Zealand [Otago & Southland Provincial Districts]

Author: Cyclopedia Company Limited

Publication details: The Cyclopedia Company, Limited, 1905, Christchurch

Part of: The Cyclopedia of New Zealand

Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 New Zealand Licence

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The Cyclopedia of New Zealand [Otago & Southland Provincial Districts]
Waipori

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Waipori.

Waipori is a scattered mining district, and forms the eastern portion of the county of Tuapeka. The township is situated about the centre of the mining district, and is fourteen miles from Lawrence, and twenty-five to the west of Outram. It is connected with Lawrence by a coach service, which carries the mails. The township stands at an elevation of about 1300 feet above sea level. Quartz mining has been carried on at Waipori since the early days of settlement, and during recent years the most modern systems of dredging and hydraulic elevating have also been in vogue. The township has a post and telegraph office, a school, hotels, and stores.
Waipori In 1898.

Waipori In 1898.

The Waipori Post And Telegraph Office is at present carried on in the business premises of Mr. F. W. Knight. Mails are despatched and received thrice weekly. Telegraph messages are transmitted at the usual rates by telephone to Lawrence. There is a money order office, but no savings bank.

Mr. Fred William Knight , J.P., Postmaster and Telegraphist, at Waipori, was born at Shirley, in Hampshire, England, in 1856. When four years of age he came to Victoria with his parents by the ship “Essex.” In 1862 the family came to New Zealand in the steamer “Aldinga,” and went to Waitahuna, where Mr. William Knight, father of Mr. Knight, carried on business as a baker with much success. The family then went to Miller’s Flat, and in October, 1864, removed to Waipori, where Mr. page 692 Knight has resided ever since, and has been intimately connected with nearly all the public affairs of the district. For over twenty years he has been a member of the local school committee, and has been many times its chairman. In 1887, Mr. Knight became a member of the Waipori Lodge of Oddfellows, in which he attained the highest position, and has for about twenty years held the office of permanent secretary. He now usually represents the lodge at the district meetings. In February, 1884, he was appointed a Justice of the Peace, and in that capacity he acts as deputy-coroner for the district. Mr. Knight was one of the founders and first chairman of the present Miners’ Association. For several years he represented Waipori riding in the Tuapeka County Council. Besides being a Justice of the Peace, and postmaster and telegraphist, he now holds an appointment as clerk of the Wardon’s Court, and formerly he held the office of Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages. Mr. Knight was a member of the Waitahuna licensing committee, when that body existed, and he afterwards contested the Taieri licensing election and obtained over 600 votes, but was not successful. He was appointed a trustee of the Waipori cemetery in 1884, and still holds that office. Since 1882 he has carried on business at Waipori as a general storekeeper; he also has the sole bakery business of the district, and does a fair trade in butchering. Mr. Knight having lived in goldmining districts nearly all his life, takes great interest in everything pertaining to the mining industry. He has owned some valuable mining properties, including several water-races and two quartz crushing batteries, and he also owns a good deal of other property in Waipori. In 1884 he married Mary, third daughter of Mr. Richard Lean, of “The Rocks,” Port Chalmers, and has five sons and two daughters. He has recently purchased, from his father-in-law, the fine property at Port Chalmers, known as “The Rocks,” and will probably settle there if he ever leaves Waipori.
Mr. F. W. Knight.

Mr. F. W. Knight.
“The Rocks,” Port Chalmers, Property Of Mr. F. W. Knight, Waipori.

“The Rocks,” Port Chalmers, Property Of Mr. F. W. Knight, Waipori.

Bridge Hotel (W. E. S. Knight, proprietor), Waipori. This is a two-storey wooden building, containing thirty-five rooms, including a bathroom, billiard-room, three sitting-rooms, and a large dining-room. There is ample stable accommodation attached to the premises.
page 693

Mr. Samuel Caudwell , sometime Proprietor of the Bridge Hotel, Waipori, was born in Nottinghamshire, England, in 1833. In 1852 he came out to Victoria, and went to Castlemaine, Mount Alexander, Bendigo, Sandy Creek, McIntyre’s, Mount Maldon and all the principal goldfields. Within two months of the discovery of Gabriel’s Gully, he landed in New Zealand. He immediately went to the field, and paid one shilling for the carriage of every one pound of food, tools, etc. For some time he was fairly successful, and he returned to Australia, where he became interested in various quartz mining ventures. About Christmas, 1866, he came back to New Zealand, and ever after resided at Waipori. On his return he engaged in ground sluicing, but sold out all his rights, waterraces, etc., and became a hotelkeeper. Mr. Caudwell was chairman of the local school committee. During a mining boom he and others sold the O.P.Q. claim to the New Zealand Minerals Company, Ltd., for £5000 cash. While he was on the Victorian goldfields Mr. Caudwell paid as much as £160 per ton for freight from Melbourne to Bendigo, and bought flour at £25 per sack, butter 6s per pound, sugar 3s per pound, and salt 3s per pound. Mrs Caudwell came to New Zealand from Victoria in the early sixties. Mr. Caudwell died on the 8th of December, 1901.

Mr. William J. Farrell , formerly owner of the Waipori Deep Lead, is a native of Belfast, Ireland, and arrived in New Zealand in 1874. Shortly after landing he joined an exploration party on the West Coast, but returned to Dunedin and entered commercial life, from which he retired in 1888. Mr. Farrell invested capital in the Macetown district, and for years was the managing director of several companies. In 1882 he made a special journey to America, for the purpose of acquiring a knowledge of modern improvements in mining. With that end in view, he visited Colorado and Nevada, and other great mining centres. In two years he returned to the colonies and acquired the “Homeward Bound,” “Lady Fayre,” “Golden Treasure,” “Victor Emmanuel,” “Morning Star,” “Black Angel,” “Garibaldi,” and “Maryborough” mines, and other properties in the Macetown district. Following in the footsteps of the late Mr. J. C. Brown, M.H.R., who floated the Blue Spur mine, Lawrence, Mr. Farrell went to London, and successfully floated one of his group, known as the Premier Consolidated Gold Mining Company, Ltd., for the sum of £70,000. This company is now named the Glenrock, Ltd., and with a total expenditure of about £18,000, it had (up to the end of 1899) obtained gold to the value of £35,000, and was still working at a handsome profit. Mr. Farrell considered that this success was largely due to working the mine under the “Incline” principle, which was at first termed a Yankee notion. During Mr. Farrell’s absence from the colony, this plan was allowed to drop, but when he returned, he, as managing director, insisted on its resumption, and brought it to a successful issue. The Deep Lead at Waipori was another mine the development of which bears witness to Mr. Farrell’s resourceful enterprise. Mr. Farrell also invested in tin mines in the Rexhill district, Tasmania, where, according to the Government Geologist’s official report, “It is nothing unusual to find large blocks of tin which yield from sixty to seventy per cent, of pure metallic tin.”
Bridge Hotel, Waipori.

Bridge Hotel, Waipori.
Mr. W. J. Farrell.

Mr. W. J. Farrell.

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