Thoese with a penchant for local history can now traverse Skippers Creek to take in a replica pioneering powerhouse from the district’s gold rush era.
After five years of archaeological investigation and planning, the Whakatipu Heritage Trust recently completed a reconstruction of the 74 square metre Bullendale Dynamo powerhouse, which shelters the station’s original pair of Brush dynamos and Pelton wheels.
Built in 1886 by the Phoenix Mining Company, the power station was a remarkable feat of engineering for its time, trustee David Clarke says.
‘‘In a remote site in the backblocks of Central Otago, you’ve got the first commercial use of hydro-electric power in New Zealand, and pretty close to being one of the first in the world.’’
Eight years after the first hydro-electric power scheme was built in England, Dunedin electrical engineers Robert Fletcher and Walter Prince were commissioned by Phoenix Mining Co to design and install a plant using ‘‘new-fangled technology called electricity’’, advancing gold extraction from the mine’s quartz reefs, Clarke says.
Two three-tonne dynamos were shipped from England, hauled by bullock teams from Dunedin to Queenstown, and up pack tracks into the south branch of Skippers, alongside additional steel machinery, water wheels, and penstocks.
‘‘[They] built a water race, built a dam, then ran the wires over the hills into the town of Bullendale to run the quartz stamping battery, the ore crusher, and even light some of the houses.
‘‘This was just-new technology and it was an incredible engineering feat, so we need to celebrate this as a true NZ No.8-wire pioneering power plant,’’ Clarke says.
The powerhouse replica’s been scaled identically, built with a timber frame and corrugated iron cladding, and the interior re-instated with the remaining original machinery.
While lightweight pieces have been pilfered by souvenir hunters over the years, the heavier steel pieces remain.
‘‘The fact that the big dynamos and wheels are still in place and have been put back in situ, as they would have appeared, is quite cool,’’ Clarke says.
Trustee and project lead Grant Hensman says they wanted to preserve the category one equipment on the site for future generations.
‘‘You’ve got to look after the past and these sites — if you can’t preserve them, future generations will have no physical history.’’
Clarke says the trek to the site’s ‘‘a bit of a grunt’’, but interacting with the slice of history is ‘‘a good reward’’.
‘‘We still have pioneers that do amazing things but … they did this with blood, sweat and tears … here’s an industrial historical site that’s right up there in terms of NZ history.’’
