Blackmore's Bach - Welcome Rock Trails, Garston

The Mud Hut

Pippy McCurdy

http://www.unusualstays.com/

http://italyoffthebeatentrack.blogspot.co.nz/2016/01/italy-off-beaten-track.html

Garston is a small country town just a little south from the southmost end of Lake Wakatipu. To stay at Blackmore's Bach there are two options. The first option for the intrepid tramper is to hike in and up through the hill paths of the Slate Ranges, to a point high up in the hills. The second option is for those who are attracted to the romance of the back country and the high hills but seek their romance without the pain. In other words pay the extra dollars and be driven to your cabin in the four wheel drive farm truck, dogs barking on the back, bags hanging on precariously who knows how,  along with the dogs. Yes - we took the farm truck in... 

Blackmore's Bach is an original and historic cabin  protected by the Historic Places Trust, and virtually unchanged from the days when it was first built in the 1890s. With sod walls and flagstone floors it is rudimentary and unadorned. This is where you bring your own bedding and all food; - there are no houses, no people, and certainly no shops for many many kilometers. In fact you are probably nearer to the clouds than to the nearest shops. 

The cabin has no electricity. It i is heated by the open fire that you will make yourself. Outside there is a bath which you can heat with a gas bottle provided; - the one you will also cook with. There is little in terms of comfort at Blackmore's Bach and there is an accompaniment of small furry animals which may or may not be of concern to those who stay.

But the pluses in the end outweigh the negatives,. You will never see the milky way so clear or so close. The silence is pure. The views stretch out far into the steep sided valleys below. You will be told about the history of goldmining in the area by a knowledgeable and interesting host. The little cabin stands like a monument to the miners who lived and died there. This is what it was like to be a miner living in fearsome isolation more than a century ago.

I may not wish to go back to Blackmore's Bach but I am surely glad I have been there. And just a heads up - baths are just as suited to sleeping in as to bathing in.

Is it a bath or is it a bed?

One word of warning for the faint hearted - small rodents ....