Today, Sunday 3rd April we left Alexandra and drove to Wanaka. On the way we stopped at the historic little town of Clyde, which is typical of the many old gold mining settlements that sprang up in Central Otago in the nineteenth century.
and we followed the walking guide in a leaflet we had picked up to see most of the historic buildings.
From there we drove to Wanaka. I remembered this town from a previous visit when we only passed through so this time we are staying for a few nights to check out the local area and walks (weather permitting, the forecast is not too good). We have booked into a lovely motel unit with the luxury of 2 bedrooms and washer, dryer and dishwasher! A bit different to some of the previous motels we have stayed in and at no extra cost, which is great.
On Saturday 2nd April we left Oamaru and drove to Alexandra, about 200kms. We took the main highway route, not Dansey's Pass which would have been less distance but nothing would have been gained time-wise owing to the narrow gravel road and hairpin bends. Once again we enjoyed stunning scenery as we drove through the mountains, not passing through a single town, just a small village or two. I never cease to be amazed how a small country like New Zealand can have so much beautiful 'nothing'.
We did a bit of a detour and stopped for a lunchtime sandwich at the little town of Naseby where gold was discovered in 1863 and within 3 months there were 2000 miners there, all hoping to make their fortune, and thus a town was born. Naseby is described in it's publicity literature as '2000 feet above worry level'!
We checked into a motel in Alexandra and went out for a welcome evening walk when we found the 'shaky bridge', and it did shake when we walked across it, and we also saw the 'clock on the hill', just visible in the photo below.
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