CROMWELL BASIN - Bannockburn-Cairnmuir

Across the Bannockburn bridge, 9km from Cromwell, is a tortured yet beautiful landscape created by miners in their sluicing for gold from 1862 to 1910. The dry silty slopes where once gold-miners sluiced away entire hillsides and more recently rabbits ravaged, are now clothed in long sweeping rows of terraces of grape plantings, alongside orchards, and home to some of the most significant wineries of the region: Felton Road Wines, Mount Difficulty, Carrick, Olssens of Bannockburn, Bannockburn Heights, Bald Hills, Cornish Point.

Felton Road forms the western arm of the Bannockburn Ridge, (Cairnmuir Road is the eastern arm). Vineyards stretch from the Bannockburn township to the slopes of Mount Difficulty. They straddle old gold workings and the ruins of Stewart-town: a classic gold miner's ghost-town. At their foot lies the Kawarau River. To the East lies Cairnmuir the home of labels such as Carrick, Bald Hills and Akarua.

While walking around the Bannockburn diggings you will discover fascinating evidence of water races, dams, tunnels, shafts, crumbling sun-dried brick buildings and orchards at Stewart Town. The slopes sweeping away below to the Kawarau Arm of the country's newest hydro lake are now the home of a burgeoning wine-growing industry. The summit of the Carrick Range (1500m asl) is the final resting place for a massive 7.9m diameter water wheel. Dragged up the mountain in 1874 it was used to drive the Young Australian stamping battery. Part of this battery, once beside the wheel, now stands on the opposite side of the valley, and between are a few abandoned huts.

        

Central Otago Wine Trail | Wine Trail Map | Wine Tours | Vineyard Stays | Accommodation | Other Tourism Activities | Conference & Wedding Venues

All contents and coding of this site is Copyright © 2006 of NZSouth Limited,
All rights reserved, please contact for any enquiries regarding the content of the site.