THE TUAPEKA PUNT
Tuapeka › Clutha
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To be honest, the correct name is the Tuapeka Ferry, but it’s the Tuapeka Punt to most people and Tuapeka Punt it shall be for this story.
But where and what is this Tuapeka Punt? Read on.
Tuapeka is a fair-sized chunk of land located near the border between South and Central Otago with Lawrence the ‘capital’ – from when the area was governed by the Tuapeka County Council.
Today, it’s farming (mostly dairy) but it wasn’t always that way.
Tuapeka is writ large in the history of early New Zealand because it was here that Gabriel Read discovered gold in ‘Gabriel’s Gully’ leading to an influx of miners, but as with all gold rushes it didn’t last for long.
Tuapeka Mouth is a small settlement ‘over the hill from Lawrence’, where the smaller Tuapeka River discharges into the much larger, more powerful and often-violent Clutha River. It’s a 30-minute or so drive inland, up the Clutha River from Balclutha and well off the beaten track for most people.
For a while it was served by rudimentary roads and a regular paddle steamer up the Clutha from Balclutha; given the speed and volume of the water in the Clutha it must have been a bit of a puff upstream for the good ship Matua and a mad dash back downstream!
After the gold had gone, permanent Tuapeka Mouth residents wanted a railway line from Balclutha and a bridge across the Clutha.
They got neither. They got an improved road – and they got the punt! Or ferry.
And the paddle steamer service continued until 1939. I am fascinated by paddle steamers on the Clutha – it seems too wild for such genteel vessels.
Just in case you aren’t aware of this particular punt – or ferry – let’s dispel all images of something like those on the Avon
