Arrowtown’s golden heritage

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33753, 28 January 1975, Page 14

Arrowtown’s golden heritage

The doctor answered the phone almost immediately. “Hello. Two dollars fifty,” he said. “Doctor Brown speaking. Five dollars.” I explained my symptoms quickly. Tired. Listless. Nervy. No longer able to negotiate pavements without stepping on cracks.

“Sorry. I’m just on my way to make some urgent house calls,” the doctor said. “I always collect the rents on a Thursday. What you really need is a psychiatrist. Ten dollars. Hang on, I’ll give you the name of a competent man. Twelve dollars fifty.” I took down the name of the psychiatrist and rang him immediately. “Helio. Fifteen dollars,” a voice said.

A sharp angina-like pain shot across my wallet as I explained my symptoms. Edgy. Depressed. Not always able to touch tip of nose with upcurled tongue. “I’d love to help,” the psychiarist said, “But at the moment I’m tied up—a little aberration of mine. Thirty dollars.” I put the phone down. What I needed was another holiday. I went into the garden. My wife had her head buried in a magazine. I dug it up playfully, and said, “New Zealand is yours. Go there now.” We chose our destination by sticking a pin through the

(By

back of a map. Northern Limit of Pack Ice. Too far for a week’s trip. > We tried another map. Arrowtown. While my wife checked that the sleeping bags were exuding the correct odour of decaying elk, I looked up Arrowtown in Dollimore’s New Zealand Guide: “An old goldmining district, once a scene of feverish activity.” Perfect. An ideal subject for my entry in the South Island Promotion Association’s travel essay competition for secondary school pupils, an extract from which I now append: “I can still remember the excitement I felt on that sunny morning as I cleaned my teeth and tested my room-mate’s irregular Latin verbs. We had already had a super day, very educational, watching the crowds in Queenstown ceaselessly promenading in search of a piece of action, and now it was on to Arrowtown, an old goldmining district, once the scene of feverish activity. “Standing in the shade of the lovely deciduous No Entry signs which in autumn turn the area, once the scene of feverish activity, into a riot of colour, it was easy to put aside the pleasure of a non-alcoholic fruit beverage and allow the imagination to wander as we looked down the authentic main street. I could almost see the weary, shuffling figure of the first real-estate prospector as he led his heavily-laden Mustang beside the Arrow River. “One can envisage the ela-

JOHN COLLINS)

i tion cracking his sun-dried • features as his dusty chukka boot knocked against some- . thing half-buried in the silt i and he stooped, overjoyed, ; to see the gleam of the gilt- • edged pioneer cottages of a , remarkably high yield. “I am a great fan of Sir 1 Keith Holyoake and try not ; to miss any of his advertisef ments on the television, i which I watch only for the i educational programmes such i as ‘lnquiry,’ ‘Gallery,’ and r ‘Kung Fu’ and so I felt very r aware that this was all part t of my heritage. The desperate struggle of the hardy , band of gold-diggers that folt lowed the first prospector’s I lucky strike—the Nineteen • Sixty-Niners—is part of all of ' us. Few are unaware of their ‘ epic -struggle to cart in the ‘ concrete blocks, multiple- ’ listing notices, section-for- ’ sale signs, Australian canned lagers, cheque books, and ! smoky bacon crisps needed ' in the early days of working ’ this rich vein. “The story of those not ’ enduring enough to reach f their goal is written along the ’ roadsides of the Queenstown 1 area in drive-in-diners and 5 tasty roadside snax, which ’ Sir Keith never mentioned, ’ and this was a disturbing f part of my heritage as I was ! not carrying an excess of > pocket money, which is why i the essay prize would be I most welcome. But I digress. , “For the legendary prost pectors who made it, the : struggle to extend their pre- ; mises day and night and to ceaselessly attach higher and ■ higher price tags to their

products and their property has been long and hard. But to the visitor it is fascinating, and very educational. We watched them at work in the original surroundings of authentic boutiques, genuine hamburger bars, and unchanged junk shops.

“Some of the early diggers have gone back East, but the town still retains the air of a gold-struck boom town (25 cents a bottle). Though methods of extraction have become more sophisticated since the first gleaming busload of tourists was sluiced, the visitor can still be fascinated to see the skilful miners separate off the glistening coins and paper flakes of money and store them in their quaint tills. History is all around, a scene of feverish activity, and very educational.

“We particularly benefited educationally and heritagewise from our tour of the original stores, where the pitifully simple needs of the early settlers were on display: coffee-table collections of coloured snapshots, authentic Maori paperweights, paua tin-openers, views of Lake Wanaka (or was it Tekapo?), deerskin dish-cloths, and busts of Sir Keith.

“Well, all good things come to an end. Must rush as Dad is home for his tea. In conclusion then, it was a very educational trip to a scene of feverish activity, and one which I recommend to anyone who is definitely unable to visit the Northern Limit of Pack Ice.”