A few cocksure claims about driving abilities over the past two weeks. Re-runs of Top Gear being studied a little too closely, A little needle creeping in between the competitors. A few sly side-bets being paid at the bookies. This was the morning of reckoning. Who would be King (or Queen) of the Karts? Highland Adventures' finest motors were being tested and there could be only one winner.
But first, headgear a la mode. Then, swarming down the pitlane in a frenzy of exhaust and screaming tyres. Lap after lap of close contest - back ends squirming out, spins into tight cormers, racing lines through the fast turns. A cloud of dust as someone across the track pirouettes on the grassy bank. And just as the adrenaline is on full throttle - it's over. Oli is our champ, but what a great time for all.
We visit Cromwell township, close to the race track. A reservoir drowned most of the old village and what's been built since is rather bland. Parts of the old town that remain are almost cowboy western in look, but I guess that's how it would have been here, Australia & Canada.
Cromwell and environs are the centre of Central Otago's fruit growing region, famous for stone fruit like cherries and nectarines. Some bright spark, obviously after a good night out decided that taxpayers' money should be spent advertising their wares - big time. So they hoisted some giant testicles over the town's name, to be seen from miles around - and just outside the cricket club's boundary. "And that's a massive strike - a 6 right over the..er soft lumpy things".
Then down to the serious stuff of the day - wine tasting! Visit a few of the many vineyards spread over the landscape, in beautiful surroundings and setlle on buying bottles from Bannock Brae, a small producer run by a lovely couple originally from Dunedin where he, Crawford, was the master brewer at the big South Island beer-maker, Speights. Oli exchanges notes and business cards.
Lunch is at Wild Earth, overlooking the gorge of a former gold-panning river, but now an adventure waterway for jet boats fightening the life out of tourists along the rushing blue torrent below a remarkable suspension bridge.
By chance, we happen upon Bannockburn Sluice - it's a former basin for gold, where the metal was found between sedimentary layers of crumbly sand and gravels. The prospectors simply sluiced the soft earth away with pressure hoses and collected meagre amounts of the gold residue. Eventuallly the reutrns were too poor to continue, so the area was abandoned. In the last century, and in only a few decades, some 30 metres of ground were simply washed away. Now the lunar-type landscape is recovering its vegetation and is covered with wild thyme which leaves an irresistible scent as you brush past and tread on the leaves. Oli hiked up to caves above the bluffs and found carts, gold pans and tools simply abandoned for well over a century.
And home again. For the older and younger members of the party, it ws all a bit much and snoozing was definitely on the cards.
