Giveaways
WHETHER you come up the Waitaki River from Kurow, with its strikingly orange Waitaki Hotel, or down from Twizel and the Mackenzie Country past Buscot Station, you have to go through the Lindis Pass to get to Wānaka and Queenstown.
The whole area is wonderfully barren and scenic.
At its northern end, the Lindis Pass begins at Ōmārama, ‘the place of light,’ where the heavy fogs that lie over the Mackenzie Country break up. Is that how Ōmārama got its name, I wonder?
The Lindis Pass was a traditional route of South Island Māori, who knew it as Ōkahu and also as Ōmakō, the name given to today’s Lindis River, which flows southward from near the pass summit. The pass formed part of the Māori system of pounamu/greenstone trails and as a way for Māori who lived near Lakes Whakatipu and Wānaka, and those who lived in the Waitaki Valley, to visit each other.
The name Lindis was bestowed by the explorer John Turnbull Thompson in 1857, in honour of the British island of Lindisfarne.
None of these names seem to be official, and the ones with Lindis in them seem to be more familiar today, so I will stick with those.
There are lots of old stone buildings that stand as testaments to a subsequent history not only of sheep farming but also of gold mining. Indeed, the first Otago Gold Rush was in the Lindis Pass area, though it did not last long and was overshadowed by more famous gold rushes such as the one on the Shotover River near Queenstown and, of course, at Gabriel’s Gully near Lawrence.
At one of the roadside rest areas in the Lewis Pass, the Geordie Hill Rest Area (which is also a campsite for self-contained vehicles), an information panel provided by the Otago Goldfields Heritage Trust describes some of the early hardships of goldmining as related by a prospector named Robert Booth, which we hardly give a thought to as we speed across the pass in modern cars:
In the company of another dray we started for the pass, not without grave misgivings of what might be before us. The first day we made five miles. We were fortunate in being accompanied by the fresh dray. Indeed, without it and the assistance given by a number of the diggers who kept with us, and with whom we shared our food, I do not think we would have succeeded in getting over the Lindis Pass, or at any rate not nearly so expeditiously as we did.
In those days, the area would have been absolutely treeless, as New Zealand native trees cannot tolerate the harsh, dry cold and severe frosts typical of this region. Booth and his companions thus found it hard to scrape up the makings of a campfire:
On the morning of the second day we were still four miles from the foot of the pass, and it took very severe work from men and horses to reach it by late afternoon. The cold that night was intense, and we had difficulty procuring before dark set in enough brushwood to keep up a small fire for more than a few hours.
And they were cheated out of a nip to drown their sorrows, as well:
Now that we were half-frozen and without means of bettering our condition for the night, it was proposed to open the first bottle of whisky. Our chagrin and disappointment may be imagined when we found the twelve bottles to contain only water.
From the modern-day rest area, the view of the rocky walls of the Lindis River Gorge are spectacular. The trees in the photo would all be natives of cold countries in the Northern Hemisphere, their deciduous character a giveaway, as nearly all New Zealand native trees are evergreen.
Behind the rest area, there runs the six or so kilometres of Old Faithful Road: a muddy track partway up the other side of the gorge, and somewhat terrifying to drive as a result. When my friend Chris visited, this winter, the sign pointing to Old Faithful Road was incomplete and easily missed, but still pointed to the Nine Mile Historic Reserve, which lies at the far end of Old Faithful Road.
In case you miss it, the entrance to Old Faithful Road is just south of a bridge across the Lindis River, and the junction of the main road and Timburn Road just to the north of the bridge.
Here’s a photo of one of the less alarming bits of Old Faithful Road.
Old Faithful Road, which some people spell Old Faithfull, might not be so bad if the weather were perfectly dry. But driving it when it was muddy was quite scary, even in a four-wheel drive.
At the end of the road, the Nine Mile Historic Reserve is also a campground, and not just for the self-contained, as it has a public toilet; though nobody was there when Chris visited.
The ‘main attraction’ at the Nine Mile Historic Reserve is the ruin of the Lindis Pass Hotel, which was a popular destination from the 1870s through to the 1930s, when the main road was rerouted to the other side of the Lindis River.
Old Faithful Road is a remnant of the former through-road. It became the blind cul-de-sac that it is today when Faithful’s Bridge, near the hotel, crumbled into the Lindis River and was never replaced.
Here is a photo of the hotel in its glory days, with two women in what looks like domestic uniforms, along with a baby and a young child, which they were probably rearing while looking after the hotel at the same time. There seems to be a man standing in another doorway as well.
Here is a video pan past the ruined hotel, showing the same side as in the historical photo just above.
You can hear the traffic on the nearby main road on the other side of the Lindis River. I am sure that if Faithful’s Bridge were replaced, the Nine Mile Historic Reserve would be a popular destination.
Along with the ruined hotel, there is also a bothy, or stone hut, that is apparently available as a shelter for campers in extra-harsh weather, though it was being repaired when Chris visited.
The New Zealand Department of Conservation (DOC) guide to the campsite adds that (as of 11 July 2025),
A short walk from the campsite takes you to an historic hut once belonging to “Wattie” Thompson, the last miner to work this area.
Wattie is fondly remembered by older residents; he lost his life in the 1979 TE 901 Mt Erebus crash.
(Chris didn’t get a picture of Wattie’s hut while he was there; it is a wooden structure, not the same as the bothy.)
The DOC guide adds that:
For your safety, it is recommended you not camp under the trees.
That’s a pretty standard rule in case one of the trees falls down, or drops a branch, or gets hit by lightning. Always worth bearing in mind.
The guide adds further that, while the campsite is free, it is not recommended for large campervans owing to the dodginess of Old Faithful Road. I wouldn’t tow a caravan along it, either.
At the entrance to Old Faithful Road, there is a separate farm road and a subsequent track that lead to Lindis Peak.
As you carry on south out of the pass, there’s still plenty of opportunity to take scenic photos, especially when the sun is low and the skies are stormy.
If you come back to Queenstown via the Crown Range Road, just north of Cardrona, you pass by a gate giving entrance to the Stack Conservation Area and the Skyline Track-Roys Peak Route, which offers commanding views over Lake Wānaka.
Coming down off the Crown Range, there are a couple of lookouts, including this very exposed and windy spot, which looks down over Queenstown Airport.
It would be interesting to go up there for a while and look down on planes coming in to land.
Alternatively, if you come back via Cromwell and the Kawerau Gorge, you have a chance to visit the Bendigo Scenic and Historic Reserves, more goldfield diggings, to which I must pay a day trip, and (if you have the money) to stay at the Boulders Retreat, amid dramatic, huge boulders above Lake Dunstan, the artificial lake behind the Clyde Dam.
From Cromwell, you return to Queenstown via the Kawerau Gorge, another spectacular gorge, where Chris snapped this picture of a small truck on a four-wheel-drive road on the far side.
Otago and its gorges have no shortage of old, scary roads, of which the Skippers Canyon Road is merely the best known!
For more, see the New Zealand Department of Conservation websites on the Lindis Conservation Area, which includes links and a brochure on Lindis Pass Tracks, and the Lindis Valley Area, which includes links to the Lindis Peak Track and Lindis Valley Tracks.
Next week, I will be blogging about a trip to Vanuatu!
If you liked this post, check out my book about the South Island! It’s available for purchase from available from my website a-maverick.com.
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