Welcome to Lucifer's
Lookout
This cache can be found at a lookout on
State Highway 6 between Kingston and Queenstown. There is plenty of
parking but there is normally plenty of muggles taking photos of
the great lake views available from the lookout. The cache is
located a small distance beyond the Armco barriers. Please use
common sense when searching and keep small children and junior
treasure hunters on the safe side of the barrier.
The Devils Staircase is a significant bluff
on the eastern shore of Lake Wakatipu. It proved a significant
obstacle for settlers and miners travelling to the goldfields from
Invercargill in the 1800's.
The following excerpts are from 'A Romance
of Lake Wakatipu' by Robert Carrick and published in
1892.
At one place the passage
becomes narrow-gutted and precipitous beyond anything to be met
with in New Zealand, the Fiords country and its environments always
excepted. This is what is known as the Devil's Staircase; and we
venture to add that, of all the hundreds of diggers who rushed the
Wakatipu by way of Southland and the Longford, not one could hear
the name mentioned, even at this distant day, without experiencing
the proverbial cold shudder. It seems at one time, in prehistoric
ages, to have been a coupling-link between main ranges on the east
and west sides of the lake, and in that way to have formed one of
nature's barriers against the further encroachment of the
waters.
The name is attributed to a man named
Green.
The first European known to
have crossed the Staircase was a man named Green, said to be
brother to the celebrated sculler in New South Wales of that name.
He was a ship's carpenter by trade, and had just completed a job
for Mr. Rees. Returning down-country by way of Southland he got
benighted on the Staircase, and had to put in a night amongst the
rocks. Of course that put him in rather a bad frame of mind.
Arriving at Dome Pass station, he related his troubles, in the
course of which he remarked, "It came on as dark as blazes, and I
tried my best to get down the hill, but it seemed to me I was
stepping down to h—ll by the devil's staircase; so I held on
to the rock by the skin of my teeth till day-dawn." Accordingly, it
was seen, Mr. Green had established claims in connection with the
ridge. The first idea was to satisfy these by naming it
"Hold-on-to-the-Rock-by-the-Skin-of-the-Teeth." On more mature
reflection it was felt there was too much of the foreign graft in
that designation to make it generally acceptable. Then, to name it
"Black as Blazes" was open to a similar objection; so that the
station people were in a manner forced to call it the Devil's
Staircase, or else abandon what they conceived to be their bounden
duty to Mr. Green. For the time being it put them in an awkward
fix. They were Free-Kirk-of-Scotland settlers, and as such were
bound to renounce the devil and his works. On the other hand, they
could not well ignore what they felt to be a righteous claim
without doing violence to their conscientious scruples. These
explanations are rendered necessary in defence of the integrity of
the early settlers, by whom this unhallowed name was at first
sanctioned.
The cache is a 350ml snap lock container
hidden at ground level.
When placed the cache contained the
following:
- Logbook, pencils &
sharpener.
- Toy Police Car
The full transcript of the book can be found
here from
the New Zealand Electronic Text Centre.
License: Creative Commons
Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 New Zealand Licence