New Zealand Gold Prospecting & Metal Detecting Forums Archive

Hi Simon
I don't have any photographs of the natural bridge, but I have walked across it.
Rather than being an arch it is flat and from memory about 10 or more metres wide.
It was just on dusk when I went there and the whole river was flowing under the bridge. I would imagine that this is how it would have been exposed from time to time when the river was low.
I went back the following day with my camera, and the water was over the bridge.
There must have been somebody who photographed on that one day in 1983. I can't have been the only one to have walked on the bridge, surely.
Noel

Hi JW
I am talking about precisely the same spot as Simon. The area where the two banks come close together that you describe is at the downstream end of the "bridge" that I walked across, but are slightly higher and out of the water most of the time. The bridge I walked across only was exposed when the Ministry of Works closed the gates at Frankton to test low flow for hydro investigations in winter 1983. There was still a fair bit of water in the river from the Shotover, Arrow and Nevis but low enough to go under the natural bridge.

Noel

Hi guys, Noel, I still dont think it is the same spot that Simon is talking about. Interesting though.
Simon, where abouts is the pack track to the "bridge" that you are talking of? Thanks

Regards

John :)

john, the track starts behind where the kayakers park up. i think there is a toilet hut somewhere nearby. just head east and you should find it. i figure its part of the old pack track. i think the rafters have done a little maintenance in recent years but i don't think they have made the track from scratch. i walked a fair way along it. with some persistence you could get to the powerhouse at roaring meg.

noel, i read somewhere the rock arch that was used to walk/jump over was washed away in a flood. that said, this places its site at somewhere about the 10 metre mark above normal flow. when out there you can see how high up the logs have gotten stuck.
i don't know if the structure you saw would be this one as it would usually be under water and of no use to cross the river.

Hi guys

I have kayaked the Kawarau many times and the place we refer to as the natural bridge is above the roaring meg get in. Ive got some old photos, ill attempt to attach them, they give the best description of the bridge. I had a friend of a friend die under the rock many years ago and advise against crossing the river at that point. Id be interested to know where the old miners trail is and if this is indeed it. These photos were taken when the river was very low at the end of summer.

The site of the natural bridge was S 45 00.343 E 169 03.931. Carparking off the highway at S 45 00.289 E 169 03.951.

You can see a photo of the natural stone bridge taken by Joseph Perry in 1865 at the University of Otago Hocken snapshot here: http://hockensnapshop.ac.nz/nodes/view/14159 - click on the photo to see full size.

A description of the routes across is included in this ODT article 19 July 1865 http://paperspast.natlib...kawarau+natural+bridge-- . Both the river-level rocks (at a low water level) and the higher rocks with the logs across were used as routes.

That first European was 23 year old Clutha farmer Nathanael Chalmers http://www.teara.govt.nz.../1c11/chalmers-nathanael who was guided through Central in Sept 1853 by Te Reko and crossed the bridge from true right to true left. In a 1910 letter, he recalled Reko said that to get to the Wakatipu water he had seen in the distance "we would go down a long spur and cross the river that runs out of the lake on a bridge of stone... Next day we started down the long spur, and then I saw the natural bridge. So far as my memory serves me, there was a wide space between the rocks on top, but we all jumped across safely." ('The Pioneers of Early Otago', Herries Beattie 1947)

Also found a mention in an 1892 novel: http://nzetc.victoria.ac...-CarARom-t1-body-d7.html
"the Natural Bridge. The water at this place, being particularly turbulent, has scooped out for itself an underground passage, leaving the superincumbent ledge of rock overhanging the channel to within a few feet of the opposite bank. Although not extending right across from bank to brae, it enabled venturesome people with good vaulting-powers to get over. "

"Note 11.—The Natural Bridge. http://nzetc.victoria.ac...ARom-t1-back-d1-d11.html
It was on this occasion I came on what was known as the Natural Bridge of the Kawarau, where the rocks overhang the stream so far that one can jump across the gap. I remember that one of the Dunedin papers of that date refused to accord to me the honour of having been the first white man to stand on the natural bridge, because, according to Maori report, the bridge was said to be a complete arch without any gap in the middle. Some years afterwards, when the gold-diggers were wandering up in that direction in thousands, the natural bridge became the chief means for crossing from one side of the river to the other, the gap having been bridged over with plants; and when the editor of the same paper remembered, no doubt, his former unbelief, he must have admitted that I had been correct in thinking that I had been the first white man to stand on the historical bridge and gaze on the turbulent water that lashed itself into foam on the rugged rocks below.—Notes made in 1860 by an early explorer." (Nathanael Chalmers)

Also 1907 and 1908 photos in the Otago Witness but the quality is poor http://paperspast.natlib...mp;e=-------10--1----0-- http://paperspast.natlib...mp;e=-------10--1----0--