Hyde
Destination
Pretty much in the middle of no-where, Hyde is a favorite caffeine oasis for Rail Trailers. While no refreshments are available 20 to 30 km either side of Hyde, elsewhere on the trail distances between flat whites or ice cold beers are much closer. It’s not for nothing the Rail Trail has earned the nickname ‘ale trail’.
Once called ‘Eight Mile’ because of its distance from the Hamilton’s gold workings, Hyde was very much a settlement of the Otago’s gold rush era. When in 1894 the Otago Central Railway reached the station site 2km out of town on the only area of flat land considered big enough for railway operations, Hyde had a number of hotels, blacksmith, butcher, baker, saddlers, stonemason, a courthouse, school and several churches. Most of these and numerous houses have now gone but Hyde, named after a former Mayor of Dunedin and to this day part of Dunedin City, is far from a ghost town.
Hyde is headquarters for a large transport firm that has gone from strength to strength following the closure of the railway, is the centre for the local farming community, has a busy schist rock quarry and is the source of clay much sought after for craft and commercial pottery. With the opening of the Rail Trail, the last of Hyde’s original hotels was literally brought back from the brink of being condemned.
Hyde is an ideal step off point for a visit to historic Macraes Flat and the enormous Macraes gold mine, a 24/7 operation that averages 170,000 ounces of gold annually.