Riding through history

By horse, wagon or on foot, retracing the old otago gold trails uncovers a new wealth for those who join the annual cavalcade.

Words: Sally Rae / Photographs: Stephen Jaquiery

Like bees to the honey-pot... for the past 20 years, the Otago Goldfields Cavalcade has attracted hundreds of hardy adventurers from within New Zealand and beyond to the Otago back country. They come from all walks of life – lawyers, doctors, hairdressers and posties, with a fair smattering of farmers and other rural-minded folk – but all have a common bond.

Whether riding in a saddle, bouncing in a buggy or travelling by Shanks’ pony, they share a love of the outdoors (or a horse, of course) and an escape from daily life as they follow in the footsteps of those long-ago fortune-seeking pioneers.

For many it is an annual pilgrimage – a date fixed in the diary as soon as the dust and sweat have been washed away from the last. Wild horses could not keep them away. Come late February/early March, it’s Cavalcade time.

It’s a time of constant clip-clopping of metal-shod hooves, conversation and laughter. The smell of leather mingling with horse sweat. Big skies, golden tussocks. A moment alone on a mountain top or slaking a dry throat in a back-country stream. A chance to leave the beaten track. The forging of new friendships and the reinforcing of old. A hard-earned beer at the end of the day. All set against the backdrop of the glorious Central Otago landscape: that timeless land.

For more images please see Issue 47 of NZ Life & Leisure