"When the summer sun is burning and the days are filled with heat,
Will you know a sudden yearning for black ice beneath your feet.
Will you hear the old stones roaring as your lonely job you keep,
And the shouting of the curlers and the swishing of the sweep..."
from 'A Curling Song' by Blue Jeans

History of

While Sheep Farming preceded gold mining in the district by about a decade, came into existence in 1863 when gold was discovered close to where it stands now. Later that year the town was moved to get at the rich ground beneath it. The majority of the town's first buildings were of a wooden frame with a calico (cloth) construction and twenty canvas shops lined each side of a muddy main street. The Ancient Briton was the first Hotel in .

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Gold Mining History in

In June 1861 Gabriel Read reported a huge find of what became known as Gabriels Gully marking the establishment of gold mining in Otago. During the months of July to December 1861 the population of Otago rose from less than 13,000 to more than 30,000 people.

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The Chinese in Otago

Up until the turn of the century the chief occupation of the Chinese in New Zealand was gold mining. The non-miners in gold mining towns provided services to miners - storekeepers, hotel workers and owners, gardeners, carpenters and joiners, gambling and opium house operators.

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Curling History

Introduced from Scotland by gold miners who came to Otago in the early 1860s it became a pastime of the miners when the severe winters in the interior produced sharp and continued spells of frosty weather, putting a temporary check on gold mining, and providing ideal conditions for curling.

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Farming History

Sheep Farming preceded gold mining in the district by about a decade. The early rushes were responsible for a dramatic increase in population and a change in economic balance from the North to the South Island. The rushes occurred at a time when much of the South Island seemed likely to remain divided into vast sheep runs controlled by absentee capitalists and a squatter aristocracy.

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Climate

town is nestled in a shallow valley in the foothills of the Mt Ida Range on the edge of the sun-bleached Maniototo Plain, 2000 ft above sea level. The Hawkden Mountain Range rises to the north-west, and the Kakanui Mountains run to the east. Elsewhere the surrounding country is gently undulating.

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