You Want Cold Water? (Dunedin, Otago) Multi-Cache
Hidden : 8/4/2013
Difficulty:
3.5 out of 5
Terrain:
4.5 out of 5

Size: Size: regular (regular)

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Geocache Description:


You're looking for a source of cold, clear drinking water? There's Speight's spring... the Cedar Creek watertrough... this Cold Water Creek spring is another water supply popular with alternative lifestylers.

The Cold Water Spring is a "Park & Fill" at the multi start icon on Blueskin Road, but this Cold Water Cache will take a little longer to complete. Please ensure that you are adequately prepared for the short but slow bushbash to the final - it's not unduly difficult, but take a friend if you are not experienced at routefinding. Appropriately, the final is on DCC Water Reserve land.

To find the cache coordinates, go where the spring's water flows, to the waypoint much further down Cold Water Creek in Lewis St, Deborah Bay. You will find an interpretation sign beside the Cold Water Creek Weir outlining the fresh water supply business based here from the 1860s to the 1890s.

Parking for the waypoint is available at Torpedo Mole Returns or Torpedo Mole (both archived). This is where the torpedo boat HMS Taiaroa was based from 1884-92, in response to anxiety about Russian expansion. (Photos) Directly over the creek from the information sign is the location of the torpedo boatshed, now rebuilt ODT article (no longer an artist's studio).

Read the Cold Water Creek Weir interpretation sign and collect the necessary numbers (A, B, C, D, E, F and G).
All numbers are included in the writeup on the sign - the wording below will show you where to look.

• The site includes...a flight of A stone steps (pedestrian access) running down to the water on the true left (north) side of the creek.
• The remains of B sets of piles for the two water jetties are visible on the beach at low tide.
• In the first eighteen months of the 1861-63 gold rushes about C00 sailing ships entered Otago Harbour.
• The cartel sold water at the equivalent today of 2D cents a litre.
• Mason and Latimer...dammed up Cold Water Creek and put an aqueduct on a mole of E piles...built out to deep water.
• When Robertson realised there were no water tankers in the harbour... he bought the XY ton iron lighter "Bloomer". X + Y = F
• A later weir, for a power supply and the residential water supply in 1920, was built 1G0 metres further up the creek.

Checksum: A + B + C + D + E + F + G = 39

Final is at SOUTH 45 4A.BCD EAST 170 3E.FGG

Click this link to check your solution



While you're at Deborah Bay, explore the historic remains:
- the remains of the weir abutment and retaining wall (on the true right just upstream of the pipe);
- a section of original stone revetment (on the true left downstream of the new rock rip-rap bank);
- stone steps and revetment just upstream of the Aramoana Road bridge;
- piles of the two water supply jetties (visible at low tide).
...then take your jerrycans up to the source of Cold Water Creek.

There is space to pull off the road beside the Cold Water Creek spring. Fill your water bottle and admire the decorative spout – who is the sculptor, do you know?

The terrain to reach the final cache is Character Building - steep, scrambly and untracked. Allow at least 40 minutes for the round trip
The red and white 2 litre container (selected and donated to the cause by Caching Assistant Vicky) will be in plain sight once you are in the right place. Coordinates are theoretically accurate to 12 metres, from 7 satellites, but given the location expect some slippery circling before you find the correct tree. At least you can wash off the mud afterwards!

Photo of Deborah Bay in the late 1860s showing the water supply jetties in the centre of the picture.
The complete photo can be viewed at Hocken Snapshop; note that it was taken before Taranaki Maori POWs and other prisoners built the harbour wall from 1872 onwards.

Stevedores Captain James Robertson and William Julier arrived from Melbourne in September 1861, 3 months after the discovery of payable gold at Gabriels Gully. When the ship anchored off Otago Heads they began business immediately by loading 16 passengers into the boat they had brought with them, charging 5/- a head for the trip to Port Chalmers. Bars inside and outside the Heads made it difficult for larger ships to enter the harbour, so many early goldrush ships anchored outside. Robertson built a thriving lightering trade (carrying goods and passengers from ship to shore).

Robertson called George Latimer and George Mason over from Melbourne and they set up a partnership as stevedores and suppliers of water to shipping.

Robertson bought the lighter Bloomer which, fitted out with tanks and pump, began supplying fresh water to ships under Julier’s command. Cold Water Creek- originally named Battens Creek after an early settler – was dammed and water channelled out to two jetties, where lighters could berth to fill their tanks.

Since ships were returning partly empty to Australia or England, the firm also did good business supplying rock ballast taken from small quarries on the coast down to Aramoana.

When potential competitors arrived with their own water barges – first William Goldie and James Rennie, then Nicholas Schumacher – they arranged to keep profits high by forming a cartel with equal shares. Water was sold at 10/6d a ton (a tradesman could earn about 10/- a day).

After seven profitable years, the stevedoring partnership between Robertson, Latimer and Mason was dissolved in October 1869.


James Robertson lived in Port Chalmers (1863 electoral roll) and continued in the stevedoring business. From 1865 to 1875 Robertson was also shipping reporter for the ODT. He then returned to seafaring and in 1909 retired to Melbourne, although his son was still in business in Port Chalmers. Robertson kept in touch with his old friends: 1911 how he shot a waterspout; 1912 at anchor after 60 years; 1916 contributing to the Port Chalmers Old Identities Association.

George Latimer continued as a well-known lighterman and captained a coastal trader to Waikouaiti.

William Julier married soon after arriving in Otago. He initially lived in one of the cottages seen in the Deborah Bay photo, and built the house which still stands at 130 Aramoana Rd as his family grew. He continued business in stevedoring, lightering, and the coastal trade with Waikouaiti - in 1871 losing a dispute over ballasting a ship. In 1883 Julier was dismissed from the water service after a dispute with the NZ Shipping Company. In old age he became a night watchman.

George Mason’s family joined him in Otago. Around 1862 he built the white house seen in the photo at 126 Aramoana Rd; if was demolished in 1966. George was a keen yachtsman and built his own ship in Deborah Bay. He continued to run the water supply business for 20 years, also buying land in the area. When shipping dropped in the early 1880s George sold the water business which was taken over by the Port Chalmers Borough Council. George then farmed at Deborah Bay, dying 25 January 1887 after being gored by one of his bulls.

Enjoy your drink of Cold Water - and be thankful we don't have to pay 10/6 a ton for it!

Information:
“Cold Water Creek Stabilisation Works, Deborah Bay, Dunedin: Archaeological Monitoring Report “ Charlotte Judge & Rod Clough 2010 available from NZHPT Archaeological Reports Digital Library
“Deborah Bay: The Peoples and Events of a Lower Otago Harbour Community” Norman Ledgerwood 2006
"Port Chalmers: Gateway to Otago" H O Bowman 1948

Additional Hints (No hints available.)



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