The Mind Creative OCT 2013
However, on turning 50, I decided to
conquer my vertigo by tackling one of
Queenstown’s exhilarating activities; with
my eyes open. The Skippers Canyon road
sign on the left of the Coronet Peak ski
fields ro ad attracted me, specially knowing
that my great-grandfather helped build the
notorious 22 kilometre road which was
constructed as a route to the gold-rich river
of the Shotover, the gold mining village of
Skippers and the quartz mining settlement
of Bullendale.
At Arthur’s Point, Thomas Arthur and Harry
Redfern took home 4000 pounds worth of gold
(a fortune in 1862) out of the river in two
months. Within six months, 4000 miners were
working in the river. The Shotover was
difficult to access in such an isolated country.
There were no tracks and miners (many of
them Chinese) were lowered to the river by
rope. It became one of the richest rivers in
the world and Skippers Gorge was a major
goldfield in this Otago region of the South
Island of New Zealand.
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