Ben Rudds II: Hermit (Dunedin, Otago) Traditional Cache
Ben Rudds II: Hermit (Dunedin, Otago)
-
Difficulty:
-
-
Terrain:
-
Size: 
(regular)
Please note Use of geocaching.com services is subject to the terms and conditions
in our disclaimer.
Visit Ben Rudd's second farm 1921- 1930. A return trip from the Bullring will take an easy two hours. It's a nice walk with children - bring a picnic and enjoy the sunny clearing. Placed with kind permission from the Ben Rudd's Trust. Note: No fires because the property is within 1 km of the Flagstaff reserve.
There is a Hut Book inside the Ben Rudds Shelter, inside a clear plastic container. This is NOT the cache! But please sign it to show you have visited- this helps the OTMC gain funding for their restoration project.
From the Bullring carpark, walk 30 minutes up the Firebreak track to the cairn marking the top of the track to Ben Rudds. It is 15 minutes down to the clearing where you will find a lunch shelter and see the foundations of Ben Rudd's hut. The cache is not in this clearing, but is in a boulderfield with good reception close by. It is a 2 litre clear snaplock visible from several metres from the right angle. Antony Hamel's track map is below (it's really worthwhile buying his book).
Several options for a loop walk:
- keep walking up the track from the boulderfield, past Castle Rock to exit onto the Firebreak Track
- return the way you came to the Firebreak track and then loop around Flagstaff
- continue down the Jim Freeman Track to the Whare Flat Road (you will have put a second car at the bottom!
Ben Rudd was a well-known gardener and farmer. He sold his farm "Woodside" on Rudd Rd in 1921 and retired, but after only a short time in town he bought this 112 acre (45 ha) property on the north side of Flagstaff and lived there until he was carried down to hospital shortly before his death in 1930 aged 76. Apparently when his sister visited him from England, she was not at all impressed by his style of living!
Ben Rudd at his hut with Otago Tramping Club visitors
Otago Tramping Club members first encountered Ben Rudd just three weeks after the club was formed in September 1923. Two parties set out on a day trip to Whare Flat (no doubt walking from town up the Flagstaff Bullock Track past Ben Rudd's I). One party reached its destination successfully, but the other was stopped and warned off by Ben Rudd. Scott Gilkison was one of those cut off, and recounted his feelings of alarm as they encountered the stocky, bearded man with the shotgun as tall as he was. As a result of this, the Club arranged with Ben Rudd that he would cut a track through the manuka scrub, thus providing a route to Whare Flat while keeping members well away from Ben's property. For this he was paid five pounds, a considerable amount of money in those days. The track was well-used for the next 11 years until it was blocked by extensive scrub fires in 1935.
As time went on, Club members came to be on friendly terms with Ben Rudd. After his death his hut continued to be a very popular area, with the added benefit of gooseberries and raspberries in season.
In 1946 Ben Rudd's became available and was bought by the O.T.C. There was a real threat that the DCC would take over the property as part of the water reserve and limit public access, but luckily a city councillor and a prominent DCC staff member were Club members and the situation was resolved.
Ornamental trees such as Bruce Campbell's rhododendrons were established (visit Walkways of Otago: Secret Rhodo Dell) and from 1950 pines were planted. Big snows in 1939 and 1945 prompted the building of a private ski hut and ski run on the property. It was never used for skiing, but was later taken on as a Club hut and was popular for day trips, birthday and Christmas parties. Unfortunately, being close to town the hut was constantly vandalised and in 1970 it was finally removed. The present concrete block shelter was completed in 1973. Ross Davies remembers the hut workparties as a "social phenomenon", although "the way these gatherings degenerated, probably many of the participants do not remember them too well".
An accidental fire in Flagstaff Reserve in 1976 destroyed over half of the 1971 Douglas fir plantings, and further damage was caused by the hastily bulldozed firebreaks. The forestry venture ceased and attention turned to controlling gorse and broom and restoring native vegetation. Around this time the DCC Water Dept planned roading around water reserves, and it was only the OTMC's refusal to allow a road through Ben Rudd's which prevented a Bullring-Swampy road. In 1989 the four ha of pines were felled (disappointingly the contractors left outlying pines and an unrestored skid site) with the small profit earmarked for restoration of the property.
The Ben Rudd Trust and the Friends of Ben Rudds support group were established in 1998. The battle against wilding pines, gorse, broom and other pests continues. Trial silver beech plantings among the pine stumps in 1990 were successful, and from 2000 regular plantings of beech seedlings (sourced from Flagstaff Creek) began, with the aim of re-creating an area of the original silver beech ecosystem. Much of the property is now regenerating kanuka/broadleaf forest. An area of narrow-leaved snowgrass is being restored, including celmisia and speargrass reintroductions. Flagstaff Silver Beech Restoration Ben Rudds is now managed under a QEII National Trust Open Space Covenant.
An evocative 1957 poem by Charles Brasch about Ben Rudd is included below as a log entry. A local author, Paula Boock, is currently writing a novel with Ben Rudd as a central character.
Update: This blog has further information about Ben Rudd, although unfortunately not all sources are given. Hermit of Flagstaff
Information:
Outdoors 1973 & 1998 OTMC publications
Ben Rudd's Property and the Ben Rudd Management Trust visit link
Ben Rudd Management Trust Maps & Background visit link
Ben Rudd Management Trust Newsletters visit link
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
[Explicit: This cache is NOT in the shelter hut!] Guvf pnpur vf ABG va gur furygre uhg! Obhyqre svryq; ba yrsg tbvat hc; fubhyq or ivfvoyr; va perivpr ol ovttrfg synggrfg obhyqre.