Uncle Roddus Tramping Diary: Tramp No. 169
Carrick Range - 26th December 2019
Christmas 2019 was spent with the inlaws down in Cromwell, Central Otago, and after the food overdose of Christmas day, much needed exercise was necessary the next day to burn off the two large bowls of dessert that found their way into my belly the previous day.
There were a couple of close by areas I had been wanting to explore for some time but the brevity of visits or the weather had prevented the last couple of attempts. It was weather that dictated the choice of my first walk of the holiday. The day was warm but mostly overcast with rogue showers appearing sporadically around Lake Dunstan. My foray up the CarrickTown track was a wise choice for the day as the showers stayed well away from that area.
The track is pretty much a four wheel drive track all the way to the tops of the Carrick Range, used by walkers, runners, mountain bikers, motor bikers and off road vehicles to access the many tracks in this hilly area, so it was a reasonably easy trek with a steady climb that first took me the 3.5km to old Carrick Town, a small group of tumbling down stone huts that were built and occupied during the gold rush in the area from the 1860s to the late 1890s.
My next target was the water wheel about another 5 or so kilometers up near the summit of the range. I stopped for lunch about half way at a group of rocks and saw the Carrick Range water race that was hand dug back in the 1870s to bring water to various mine sites in the area, the race is 34KM long and still has a strong water flow, now used for irrigation purposes down at Bannockburn where my track started. Met a runner on the track just past Carrick Town who has just been up to the waterwheel and back. After lunch, continued on to the waterwheel. Had to drop off the main track a bit to visit the wheel which was used to run the crushing battery to crushed the quartz they mined to get at the gold within. The Battery had been relocated to another site in the area so just the restored wheel was at this site. The day was still young so I decided to head up onto the tops and so after I rejoined the four wheel drive track I finished the climb onto the Carrick Range. up on the tops at just over 1200m I found another DOC sign with various destinations I could wander onto but time and legs weren't going to allow too much more so I went for a short womble in a northerly direction towards Slapjack Saddle, had another rest at some rocks to refuel before the long downwards grind back along the same route back to my car. Walked about 20KM with a height gain of 900 to 1000M in just under 6 hours.
As I had not been tramping for several weeks, I was pretty sore at the end of the day but my new boots held up very well with no blisters or hot spots.
No comments:
Post a Comment