2025 Alpine Otago Gold Rush Tour
The Classic Motoring Society of NZ, Alpine Rally.
5th September 2025
As cars turned up at the start line breakfast, the owners of older classic cars couldn’t help doing a quick scoot around their cars, checking that there was nothing leaking or flapping which needed a tweak.
Inside the Hornby Club it was a buzz as 62 people anticipated this adventure together. The breakfast was great and after a pep talk from chief organiser Graeme Craig, we were let loose.
The days drive was pretty straight forward, to Hororata, Geraldine for a coffee and a bite, to Tekapo where we turned right into Bremer Road. We did the shingle loop coming back down beside Lake Pukaki and
under the pipe lines to Lake Pukaki power station.
On to Omarama for the night and an evening meal together.
At breakfast time we looked out on a beautiful very crisp morning. When I went to the car, it
looked like it had rained in the night and the rain drops had frozen into ice balls. Please forgive
me for telling this again, but I had heard that a credit card was good for scraping ice off the
screen, so I opened my wallet and got a card out, but for all my scraping, it was not working
very well. Then I looked closer (always a good idea) and noticed that it was actually only a loyalty card.
That’s why I was only getting 10% off.
A great days driving, snow on the side of the road at Lindis Pass. ✅
Lunch stop
I wondered if our 1965 Daimler 2.5 was the oldest car on this Alpine, but no, Brian Grace had his 1957 MG Magnet there, so he takes that prize. Talking to Brian, he said that he drove this car on the first Alpine in 1993, 32 years ago when the MG was only 36 years old. Well done Brian.
The Saturday run took us over the Crown Range, we deviated a little into Arrowtown, then back to Cromwell for the night. The Central Otago scenery was as stunning as ever with plenty of snow on the tops.
On Sunday we drove through Ida Valley along some great roads, saw interesting little settlements and landscapes. We all stopped for some time at St Bathans, looked through the old Colonial house, the Gold
Office and the Blue Lake. Quite a number of us had a bite to eat at the old pub. There were only 2 or 3 staff on, so when 62 of us descend on these small places, we do tend to overwhelm them. We had time on our side though, so all good.
The final night’s dinner was good too. This has been big for Sharpie as I think that this must be a rare
occasion when he was not heavily involved.
On Monday morning about a dozen of our cars did 3 laps of Highlands Motorsport Park,
behind a pace car which started off at a sedate pace and gathered momentum. Nothing too
outrageous but good fun.
Well done and thank you to Graeme and Merle Craig.