After having stopped in Queenstown for some lunch, we decided to take advantage of the great weather to head back out and explore some of the other tracks close to town.
We found another loop track that looked to be fairly easy, but with a few interesting sights along the way. After parking near Lake Wakatipu, we started climbing up through the forest. The low winter sun was already barely making it over some of the mountains, but there was just enough sunlight to make all of the leaves on the New Zealand beech trees stand out.
After climbing steeply for a while, we were rewarded with views over the Lake Dispute Valley all the way to Lake Wakatipu, the big lake that Queenstown sits on. After reaching the highest point on the track, we dropped down into the Twelve Mile Creek valley and after crossing the creek, we came to a historic mining site.
The area has a long history of mining, the first settlement in the area was actually a Chinese mining camp in about 1870. Not much remains of the original settlement, however just down the Valley there are parts of the later European camps. One hut, the Sam Summers’ hut, which dates back to the 1930’s is still standing. He spent ten years living in the hut prospecting for gold and hunting in the forests.
Further down the track the remains of the old mines continued, we walked through an area of old sluicings before coming to a sign pointing to the old tailrace tunnel. As we approached, we could see a small crack in the rocks, just wide enough to walk through.
We were surprised when the tunnel continued, remaining large enough for us to walk all the way to where it ended high above Twelve Mile Creek. The hand-cut tailrace tunnel was dug during the peak of mining in the area. Although the forest has started to reclaim parts of the tunnel, it is estimated that nearly 240 cubic metres of solid rock were removed to create the tailrace.
We completed the loop as the sun started to set and headed back into Queenstown to enjoy one more evening in town before heading home.