It was a real pleasure to head away with the 12 History class to Central Otago Friday morning, especially as many schools have had to cancel their history research trips.

12 History Trip

28th-29th August

We felt very lucky that the Lakes District and Cromwell Museums were prepared to host us while in Level 2. After a brief stop in Omarama, we headed straight for the Lakes District Museum in Arrowtown. After a very quick tour of the museum by Denise, the Education Officer, the girls were straight into the research, accessing a large collection of primary source materials. The museum has an incredibly large collection of artefacts which related to the majority of the topics that the girls were focusing on. The gold rush period in Central Otago was short, sharp and quite dramatic at times, especially for the Chinese miners. After a few hours with these resources, Denise took the class on a walk around Arrowtown, stopping to look at the miners cottages on Buckingham Street, mostly being Grade 1 buildings, then off to the Gaol and finished up with St. Patrick’s church and Mary McKillop’s cottage.

The following morning, under a crystal blue sky, although quite chilly, we started off with the first of our cemeteries for the day – the Arrowtown cemetery. Then it was down into the Chinese village, gaining first-hand knowledge on just how cold it would have been in that part of Arrowtown for the Chinese. It was then goodbye to Arrowtown and off to Cromwell for our second cemetery of the day, as well as the Cromwell Museum. The museum is another excellent resource for the girls, with many artefacts and primary source materials. We then journeyed through to St. Bathans, where the day had taken a decidedly chilly turn and once again, we were made very aware of how the weather would have affected the miner’s lives. Sadly, the Vulcan Hotel is currently closed, so it was off to Naseby for our last cemetery stop, making it back into Oamaru late Saturday afternoon.

We would all like to thank Mrs. Wright for coming on the trip with us, we really appreciated her support.