We started our third day on the Otago Rail Trail with breakfast at the Maniototo Cafe. It was excellent, just what we needed to start the day feeling good.
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| Breakfast at the Maniototo Cafe |
Before heading out we toured the museum of old farm implements near the rail trail. Some of them were pretty cool things I hadn't seen before, such as Bentall's Patent Chaffcutter. They also had a barn full of old tractors, and we met a gentleman who was supposed to have a key to it so we could see them but his key didn't fit. Bummer.
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| Mini Bldg |
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| Bentall's Patent Chaffcutter | Concrete Mixer |
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| Xxx | Road Grader |
Then it was back on the trail. We crossed a bridge over a small stream and I noticed an innovation I hadn't seen before. I've often seen ranchers use rocks as weights to hold a fence down where it belongs when it is crossing a dip in the landscape. In this case they had tied large jugs to the wires and filled them with water.
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| Dona | Bridge | Fence Weights |
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| Sheep
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| White Faced Heron | Tall Grass |
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We reached Wedderburn, the highest railway station in Otago, about 4km shy of the pass which is the high point of the trail. "Wedder" is another way of writing/saying "wether," which is what a castrated male sheep is called. I'm not sure what the "burn" part is a reference to.
At one point New Zealand had standard plans for railway stations, ranging from the smallest class 5 up to class 1, the largest and fanciest. Wedderburn's station is the only remaining class 5 station in New Zealand.
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| Dona Stamping our Rail Trail Passport
at the Wedderburn Station |
Wedderburn Vogel 5 Station |
We stopped in at the Wedderburn Cottages Red Barn Visitor's Center. It is a small museum with some really interesting artifacts, and a small unmanned snack case where you pay in the "Honesty Box".
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| Wedderburn Cottages Red Barn Visitors' Center |
One of the coolest things they had was a very long wool staple -- 25" (635mm)! It was from a 1/2 bred wether which had not been shorn for seven years. The sheep had little wool on it except for its back, and that wool hung down the sides and touched the ground, The staple was generally sound except for a break in the third year. It you look at the picture you can easily see the break in the wook at the third year.
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| Honesty Box | Red Barn Visitors' Center | Wool Staple |
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| Summit Marker, 618m above Sea Level | Summit Cairns and Decorations | |
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A bit after passing the summit, we came to another marker, this one marking the 45th parallel. So we went from being below the half-way point from the equator to the south pole to being above it. It didn't feel much different...
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| 45Deg South |
We continued on our way downhill. We were just zooming along and having a good time and then we realized we had missed the Golden Progress Mine. So we turned around and rode back; we hadn't missed it by too much. During its heyday it employed 25 miners working in shifts. I climbed to the top of the 14m Poppet Head, used to raise and lower miners into the 45m deep mine, and to raise ore from the shafts below.
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| Mine Building |
As with most tower-type things, I couldn't stand just looking at it where it looked like there was a way to get on top, so I worked my way past the missing stuff at the bottom and then carefully climbed up. There was a nicw view from the top.
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| Golden Progress Mine Boiler and Poppet Head | Gary on His Way Up
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On Top
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| Gary Checking Things Out
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Starting Down
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| Poppet Head Pulley Wheel | Looking Down into the Shaft |
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| Golden Progress Mine Info | |
While I was up on top of the Poppet Head, a Harrier buzzed me, apparently upset about my being up on its favorite perch. Or else it had a nest nearby.
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| View From Poppet Head | Harrier |
There were other shafts in the ground nearby.
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| Old Shaft | Mine Boilers |
The land around the mine had a number of trees with berries on them, and lots with thorns. Plus lots of spider nests.
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| Tree Berries | |
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| Thorns | Spider Nest | Moth
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We headed on down the road to Oturehua where we would spend the night. After settling in to our lodgings at Oturehua Crow's Nest we hopped back on our bikes and headed over to Hayes Engineering.
Hayes Engineering was a pretty interesting place. They had the usual collection of old stuff outside, but the really neat stuff was in the shop, where they have a boatload of operational vintage equipment.
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| Hayes Engineering Sign | Philosophy Sign |
The machinery in the shop was originally all hand powered. In 1909 the shop was converted to windmill power, with a huge driveshaft running overhead. There are pulleys and belts throughout used for delivering power to individual pieces of machinery. Today the shaft is driven by a diesel generator; once a month they have a live demonstration.
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| Tractor | Windmill | Windmill Blades |
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| Lathe | Drill
Note gear speed pulleys made of wood |
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| Cutoff Saw | Grindstone
For shaping and sharpening sheep shears, chisels, etc. Water drenched when in use |
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| Battery Charging Setup |
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| Drill
Originally hand operated; converted to belt drive |
Anderson Threading Machine
with Coventry diehead Used to thread bolts and shafting |
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| Forge | Forge Tools |
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| Hoop Bender
used to bend hoops for windmills Punch & Shear on right |
Punch and Shear
Used to cut 50mm x 50mm angle iron to make metal fenseposts |
Threading Machine
The top cone drives clockwise; bottom drives counter-clockwise |
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| Triplex Machine
Used to form the housing for permanent fence wire strainers |
Permanent Wire Strainers
I use these today! |
They had quite a display showing the evolution of fence tighteners.
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| Wire Strainers | ||||
They even had some old moulds used to make clay bricks. The bricks were way bigger than anything we know today as a brick; the mould looks to be about 12"D x 24"W x 6"H.
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| Brick Mould |
After touring the Hayes Engineering shop we returned to the Crow's Nest and cleaned up. Our accomodations were in an old converted railway car.
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| Crow's Nest Accomodations |
There's not a lot of space in an old railway car after you put a double bed in it. The bathroom had the smallest sink I've ever seen, deep but very short front to back -- only about six inches! I kinda liked its minimalness.
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| Skinny Sink | ||
Then we went out for a glass of wine and played bananagrams.
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| Wine and Bananagrams |
The morning would see us riding downhill, from Oturehua to Omakau.
This page last updated on 2016-11-29.
