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 ....

The Ghosts of the Vulcan Hotel

A Visit to St Bathans

Pippy McCurdy: 
 http://www.unusualstays.com/
http://www.stumbleuponcroatiaslovenia.com/

Far off the beaten track in the heart of Central Otago is a small cluster of buildings. This is St Bathans, - once a thriving town of thousands, bustling with miners hungry for gold.The Vulcan Hotel is the only hotel which remains in this isolated spot, yet the locals come from far around to drink at the bar, and the visitors and toursits join them, -  but probably struggle to keep up because this is Speights country.

Not many people search for gold here any more, even though there are more than a few who believe there is still gold to be found. So if the tourists do not come for gold, do they come for the strange ethereal scenery; the beauty of the Blue Lake; the ever-changing trees that stand like bare spectres in the midst of winter, or rustle in the warm winds of autumn. Well no. Mostly they come to see the ghost.

Her name was Rose. She was murdered for her gold they believe, - gold she had earned as a lady of the night, - and there were many willing to pay. She was killed in the front bedroom of the Vulcan - one of 13 public houses in St Bathans at the time. 

You can still rent her room to this day and be a guest of the Vulcan. Maybe you will encounter one of the hotel's ghosts - because word is that there are not one but three ghosts, who still wander restlessly through the quiet corridors.

I did not encounter Rosie nor her entourage. In fact I spent a very pleasant evening in the company of the patrons and the very hospitable staff. The Vulcan is a friendly, pleasant, rather nice place to stay - a place which still retains a sense of presence and style belonging  to its nineteenth century past.

No ghosts chose to reveal themselves to me. But I believe they were silently present. St Bathans - not a ghost town  - but somehow a slightly mysterious place, all the same. A part of me wondered if this was not in fact, some parallel universe that I had been fortunate enough to stumble upon.

Websites: http://www.unusualstays.com/
http://www.stumbleuponcroatiaslovenia.com/