The ‘Special’ takes you over and beyond the Mount Ida range, visiting the old Mt Buster Goldfields, (at 4000 ft above sea level, one of the highest and richest in Otago) and follows the Tailings Creek. Then loops back to cross spectacular open tussocks.

Naseby
Visiting the sleepy township of Naseby today, it’s hard to realise 5000 ‘diggers’ (gold miners) once toiled on its gold fields after the Parker brothers discovered gold in 1863. The reminder of this frantic time is a wealth of surviving Victorian architecture, and buildings constructed from adobe (sun dried mud brick). Naseby was once the main centre of the Maniototo.

Pig and Whistle Road
Also known as Mt Buster Road and once the main supply road to the Mt Buster and Kyeburn gold diggings and dredges.

Chum’s (Shum’s) Hut
A permanent resident of the district, Joe Shum (Chum) came to New Zealand in 1900. While showing a visiting white man, Hardie, around his claim, he was shot and killed. The 2 ounces of gold Hardie stole and which an astute Ranfurly bank teller recognised, was, with other evidence enough to get Hardie life imprisonment.

Mt Buster (Burster) Gold Workings
Gold, discovered here in 1863, included claims running from Clarke’s Gully to Sergeant Garvey’s Cairn and mostly on Kyeburn Station. Claims were abandoned during the winter months and in the spring, returning miners were forced to travel through 2-4 foot of snow to get to their huts and often had to tunnel through snow to get to their doors.

Blue Duck and Long Promise Huts
Used up until 1990 when a new hut was erected halfway between the two.

The Swinging Bridge
Built in the early 1930s to facilitate crossing sheep over the river when in flood by Alec McNeilly, Naseby, and the material packed in by mule train.

Sergeant Garveys (Cairn)
Sergeant Garvey, a mounted police sergeant from Naseby, died in the high country of exposure beyond Mt Buster, three months after the Naseby and Mt Buster gold rushes. He was just 28 years of age and a Crimean War veteran. The accident happened after he disagreed about which direction to take and separated from his traveling companions, a trooper named McDonald and a baker named Magee.

Ida Valley Railway Station (Mustering Hut)
Brought here in 1976 from Oturehua.

Kyeburn Diggings
Danseys Pass leads through the Kyeburn Diggings and the Kyeburn River with its miner ruined cliffs and heaped high tailings. The remains of a Chinese water race can still be seen, curling around the hillside.