So we decided to go and explore somewhere we have never been and went to Ophir, a little village famous 'back in the day' as a gold mining centre. This whole area was a gold mine so any old building has been preserved and turned in to a tourist trap (the Japanese love it!).
We drove towards Clyde which was doing the 'smoke on the water' thing - it was clear in Cromwell for a change - so we stopped to take a few photos.
So Ophir, formerly known as Blacks after Charles Black who first found gold here, and is very small, population 30 (60 when the 'cribs' are being used) with very wide streets, a hotel, pub and post office. It changed its' name in 1875 after the biblical land where the Queen of Sheba obtained gold for King Soloman. At its' height there were 1,000 people here.
So the street is
quite wide and
you are encouraged
to look at the
schist kerb stones
as apparently they
are quite a feature,
something they have
looked after and
seem to be very
proud of so well
done Ophir!
Apart from a man
cutting wood and
a couple pushing
a pram we didn't
see anyone else.
Our car looks
very lonely up
the street there.
It is a lovely little suspension bridge, the 'road' part of it is wooden which they have to replace every so often and there are great views of the Manuherikia river from here - it runs in to Alexandra.
when the temperature got down to
-21.6 °C New Zealand's second-lowest official
temperature record for the area on 3 July 1995.
In hangs in pride of place in this old pub and I
managed to find it on the web so
'borrowed' it!
These are the Dunstan
mountains on our drive
home with the Pisa
mountains range in
the distance.
I have to include the poster that Derek loves, took a photo of it just for him. "If I were younger, this is what I'd be doing" said Derek!!!!
Now it is lunch time again, good job I made a huge pot of vegetable soup yesterday after we talked to James, Donna and the boys on Skype - good luck with your move all of you - so just one last quick photo of the 'block' I did yesterday. It's a foundation piece so really easy to do.