The Tuia Mātauranga Pōkai Whenua GeoTour follows the footsteps of early explorers of Aotearoa New Zealand taking you to places where leaders of the past searched for food, resources and ways to adapt and survive in this new land.
Use the Pōkai Whenua GeoTour as your classroom to explore the stories of the past, in the present, to preserve what is unique in Aotearoa New Zealand for the future.
Collect the codewords to get the Geocoin puzzle pieces.
To be able to complete this GeoTour and receive your special Geocoin collectable, remember to take a note of the codeword placed in the cache. This will need to be recorded in your passport which can be downloaded here.
63 of the 150 Pōkai Whenua GeoTour caches will contain a randomly placed special FTF token (a replica of the Tuia Mātauranga GeoTour commemorative coin). This is yours to keep! If you find more than one, you might consider leaving it for the next person who finds the cache.
The former Luggate Flour Mill is recognised as a significant historical structure constructed in 1881. The Flour Mill sits at the northern edge of the commercial precinct close to Luggate Creek.
In the late nineteenth century Luggate, a small settlement near Wanaka was the centre of farming. Farmers grew crops of wheat and oats, but complained about a lack of market for the wheat, which they grew principally for their own use.
Farmer and businessman Thomas Anderson moved from Queensberry to Luggate where, in 1881, he purchased land in partnership with carrier Peter McIntosh. In January 1881 the Otago Witness reported that 'last season the settlers were much inconvenienced by the want of a mill to turn their wheat into flour, but this is to be at once remedied, for the plant is on the ground to erect a mill on the Luggate Creek.'
The mill made use of a large water race originating some distance up the Luggate Creek, which was previously used for mining purposes. Comprising of 3 storeys it allowed for the processing of grain. If this mill operated in a way common to other multi-storey mills, the grain was lifted to the top floor and then dropped to a hopper, which fed the grain to the millstone. When the grain was ground it went by chute to a sack at ground floor level.
The Luggate mill's first advertisement read 'The mill is fitted with the latest machinery, and the utmost care will be exercised in milling'. A survey plan, drawn in 1883, shows the mill with a hut, house and pigsty built to the south. The mill was water-powered, with a large Pelton wheel fed by a race above it.
In 1894 Anderson is reported as having overhauled the Luggate Flour Mill. The stone flourmill was dismantled and replaced with a set of rollers, which doubled the capacity of the mill. As many mills replaced their grinding stones with rollers, there was controversy about the respective merits of each, including whether brown or white bread was more nutritious.
In 1903 Anderson was reported as having bought a farm 'down south'. There was speculation as to whether he would sell the farm and mill at Luggate, or keep both places. In 1904 McIntosh sold out his share of the mill to Anderson. In 1908 Reid and McDowell bought the mill. 'Very extensive improvements' were completed at this time. Reid and McDowell also owned the Hayes Lake Flour Mill.
However, the Luggate mill could still not cope with all the wheat grown in the area. As historian Irene Roxburgh notes, for instance, although Reid and McDowell purchased a thousand bags of grain in 1909, there was still much unsold in the area. A large part of this was due to the difficulty of transporting goods to Dunedin at a time when the railway ended at Clyde, and goods had therefore to be carted the distance of approximately 90 kilometres to the railhead by wagon. In 1910, McDowell left the partnership with Reid, who continued working as William Reid and Sons.
At the beginning of the World War Two, with a shortage of workers, the firm ceased operating, although William Reid and Sons continued to own the mill and surrounding land. The property was transferred to the ownership of other members of the Reid family at different times until they formed the Upper Clutha Transport Company Ltd in 1967.
At the present the Upper Clutha Transport Company Ltd. still owns the former Luggate Flour Mill, and uses it as a workshop. With the large gravelled area in front for truck parking. The building is set well back from the road. Until recently there was an associated two storied storage shed and covered walkway from the first floor of the mill leading to this, making the mill building itself difficult to see from the road. This has now been removed, leaving the impressive schist structure much more visible.
Some of the original mill mechanism relating to the waterwheel is still in situ in the roof, and the Pelton wheel remains in a water-filled cavity in the northwest corner of the building, probably close to where the waterwheel was once located. The stone in the interior has been roughly plastered. On the second (or top) floor about half the floor has been removed, probably more than four decades ago. The times changed when the cost of milling and transportation became less cost effective and viable. On many of the soils heavy cropping quickly exhausted the humus content and destroyed it's structure. Erosion was induced, crop yields fell, and this land reverted to poor unproductive grassland. Irrigation systems have greatly improved the area which is now more suited to grazing and fodder crops. The mill now stands as a reminder of the past history of Luggate.
Luggate Flourmill (Former)
Copyright: NZ Historic Places Trust. Photo By: A Middleton.
Cache hidden in the local reserve, follow walkway from the Mill Viewpoint to the entrance or alternately park opposite the hotel and walk from there.