JAMMY STOP, JIMMY
In this series Peter Dragicevich searches out top spots for a pit stop on a classic Kiwi road trip. In Roxburgh he keeps an eye out for hot marquesses but settles for apricots
If you’re driving between Dunedin and Queenstown you have options as to which route to choose, and none of them is short on scenery. However, this is one of those rare situations where the quickest way is also arguably the most spectacular, shadowing the mighty Mata-Au/Clutha River on State Highway 8 before switching to the Kawarau River on SH6. All up, this journey through the heart of Central Otago takes around 3.5 hours — definitely long enough to justify a break.
Pit-stop possibilities include the wineries of the Gibbston Valley and the heritage towns of Clyde and Cromwell — but those are tourist attractions in their own right, each worthy of longer exploration. If it’s just a bite and a bog that you’re after, the little gold-rush town of Roxburgh has the advantage of being conveniently located right at the halfway mark.
Roxburgh got its start in 1862 when gold was discovered at the juncture where the Teviot River flows into the much larger Clutha. For its first 15 years, the mining settlement was known as Teviot or Teviot Junction, but in 1877 it was renamed Roxburgh after a vanished town on the River Teviot in Scotland. The Scottish Roxburgh once rivalled Edinburgh for importance but it was battered during the Scottish Wars of Independence and disappeared entirely in the 15th century — but not before lending its name to the county of Roxburghshire, which is where some of those early Otago prospectors hailed from.
Incidentally, the current Duke of Roxburghe is Charles Innes-Ker, a mate of Prince Harry, who once made a list of “Single and Hot Marquesses” in Tatler and was later dubbed “Britain’s most eligible bachelor” by the same magazine after he inherited his father’s title and a ducal estate worth around £100 million. Why the Roxburghe in his title has an "e" on the end is anyone’s guess but if you’re sitting on that kind of fortune, presumably you can buy as many vowels as you like.
We’re not sure if Otago’s gold rush produced bachelors quite as eligible as him but gold mining continued in our Roxburgh well into the 20th century. Eventually the wee town swapped one golden claim-to-fame for another and nowadays it’s best known for its delicious apricots, as well as cherries, peaches, nectarines, plums and apples. The freezing winters and scorching summers make it one of New Zealand’s top producers of stonefruit, and there are plenty of places along the main road where you can fill your boots with fresh local produce.
The Scottish references keep coming in Roxburgh, with SH8 transforming into Scotland St as it passes through town. If you’re coming from the south, the first shop you’ll strike is the renowned Jimmy’s Pies. This humble bakery opened here in 1960 and now produces around 20,000 pies a day and distributes them throughout the lower South Island. Its tiny shopfront is the only place where you can sample the full range of 20 pies, so if you want to scoff two Roxburgh icons in one bite, opt for the retro apricot chicken. If you’d prefer a proper sit-down feed, decent options include 103 The Store and Trundles on Teviot further along Scotland St.
On the way through town, look out for the Roxburgh Cinema on the other side of the road, just past the Catholic Church. It’s extraordinary to think that this small-town hall might potentially be the oldest continuously operating cinema in the world. In 1897, just two years after the new technology was debuted by the Lumiere brothers in Paris, the first flick was shown at the Athenaeum Hall which stood on this site (the present building replaced it 33 years later) and they’ve been rolling ever since.
On the next corner is heritage-listed St James’ Anglican Church, built in the Gothic-Revival style in 1872 using local stone. Next up is the i-site information centre which shares a building with the RSA; call in for details on Roxburgh’s two epic mountain-biking trails — Clutha Gold and
Roxburgh Gorge.
Both tracks have a terminus at Roxburgh Dam on the Clutha River (yet another Scottish reference, Clutha being an ancient name for the River Clyde), just off the highway 9km north of the township. It’s well worth taking a drive over the dam and parking at the bottom to get a good look at this impressive hydroelectric power station which first generated electricity in 1956.
If you ended up grabbing Jimmy’s Pies to go, this is a great spot to munch into the golden crust and contemplate Roxburgh’s golden past, present and future before continuing your trip.
For more to see and do in the area, go to centralotagonz.com