room 101 and the kindness of strangers

Humbly dedicated to New Zealand's greatest practical joker.

Some years ago I cycled through the McKenzie Country, approaching from the north through Burkes Pass.  I still recall making my way down beside the canal from Lake Takapo with a very strong wind coming in from my left, threatening at any minute to push me into the water.  After what seemed a long time the canal made a 90 degree turn to the right and suddenly I was riding hard and fast, reaching the top end of my top gear, registering a sustained 40-45kmh for the next half hour or so.

I spent the night at Twizel and made my way down the hydro canals to the top of Lake Benmore.  My plan was to reach the end of the canal system and made my way over the dewatered rivers to the Haldon Station area and taking a beautiful wooded valley that I'd read about to Benmore Dam.

Leaving my bike at the end of the canal I waded over the Ohau River and followed a 4wd track across the end of the Pukaki River.  It soon became clear that I'd have to carry everything over the loose shingle of the river bed and it wasn't going to happen.  So I spent the night where I was and returned up the canal road next day.

There are two hydro stations on that stretch of the canal - Ohau B and C.  Each is built to the same design, each has the same layout shown on the alarm board beside the entrance door.  Each board has a list of the rooms, naming them for their function or the equipment they hold.  Except for one.  

Each station has a small room, at basement level, under the car park.  Each of those rooms is named Room 101.  For those who don't know the meaning of "Room 101," it's from the George Orwell novel 1984, set in an ultra-stalinist regime where the Ministry of Love, the place you are interrogated and tortured, has a room where, having found what your innermost weakness is, you are finally broken. 

 

The Upper Waitaki Scheme was a project of the New Zealand Ministry of Works, a state-owned construction juggernaut (in NZ terms, at least) which swept all before it.  Own a farm where a dam is needed?  No problem for the MOW.  The government would pass a law and your farm is gone.  Want to grow apricots in a valley which needs to hold water for a dam?  No problem, your water rights are extinguished and your apricot trees are gone - except for one, in a rest area near the new stretch of highway.  The MOW built dams, canals, roads, bridges - and towns.  Twizel was a project workers' town, not meant to survive the Upper Waitaki Scheme's completion.  Yes, the Ministry of Works was an irresistible,  monolithic force (well, at least in NZ terms).  And someone played a joke on it. 

The commissioning date for Ohau B and C hydro stations sits in bronze below the Station name and the New Zealand coat of arms.  It overlooks the car park, under which is Room 101.

In mid 2009 I read a number of books of urban legends.  There's a common one featuring a truck taking heavy machinery under a bridge which, it is calculated, it will miss by a narrow margin.  Against all expectations, the top of the load clips the bridge and comes off.  The calculations hadn't included the expansion of air in the tyres of the heavy carrier.  My dad told me that story, setting it under the railway underpass at Alma, south of Oamaru.  As far as I know, it never happened.  The books got me thinking about "Room 101."  I had no photos of it.  Had I really seen it?  I wanted to be sure, I wanted photos.  

My opportunity came when one of the Cook Strait power cables was powered down for repairs.  One of the canals of the Upper Waitaki Scheme was going to be drained for inspection and possible repair of one of its gates.  That might be interesting to see, I thought, if I can get to it.  But more interesting would be the boards near the entrances of Ohau B and C Stations.  Or at least B.  Walking to them both from the highway near Twizel would be a long day.

For reasons which would take too long to go into here, I hitch wearing the uniform of an Imperial Russian Army General.  It certainly gets me noticed.  When asked some version or other of "Why the uniform?" - and if I think the driver can take it - I'll answer with some version of "Well, the people at the Clinic are very nice but they won't let me hitch naked any more."  

Not me.  But illustrative of the uniform I wear, though mine is more a bottle green in colour.

The uniform does work well for hitch-hiking.  Many people have picked me up simply to find out who I am.  Once I was picked up, in Winchester, South Canterbury after dark, by a driver who turned around to do so just to be sure that he'd seen what he thought he'd seen.  It was one of the most welcome meetings I've ever experienced.

I made my way to the north of Dunedin, the beginning of the Northern Motorway.  For the life of me, I can't recall who picked me up there and dropped me in Oamaru.  But I think it was a relatively fast ride there.

I was dropped off in the centre of Oamaru.  Anyone who has walked from the centre of Oamaru to its northern end on a warm day, wearing wool and carrying a pack will understand that, having done it once (or in my case plenty more than once) it can be a long walk.  So I broke my hitching rules and spent ten dollars on a taxi to the end of town.

Late morning found me at the north end of Oamaru.  I noticed a house truck stopping a couple of hundred metres to the south.  The passenger door opened and closed and I thought nothing more of it.  Then, approaching me, it indicated and stopped. The driver was retired teacher, Gail, who had stopped just earlier to chase a bee out of the cab.  Gail lived in her housebus and drove it between fishing spots.  As we drove up the valley we talked about my destination and the more we talked the more we realised that we were aiming for exactly the same place.  She was headed for the end of the canal road at the top of Lake Benmore.  She was kind enough to stop at the power company HQ but there was nobody there who knew about the history of Ohau B and C.  We arrived at the end of the road, built a campfire and talked until well after dark.

Ohau Canal.  The water shows the characteristic milky colour
from silt melted out of the glaciers at the head of Lake Pukaki.

Ohau C Station

Gail's home

The last of the sunlight on the hilltop 

Next day, Gail was keen to see the empty canal on the other side of Twizel so we headed back up the canal road.  There were a few men standing around Ohau C wearing hi-viz so we stopped.  "Does Room 101 actually exist?" I asked one of them.  It does, he told me.  It's a small concrete room with one steel door and no windows.  It was built for air conditioning equipment which was never installed.

Meeting of the Pukaki and Ohau Canals.

We drove past Twizel and then along the nearly empty canal, stopping at one of the gates to see the large trout in the remaining pool.  Then Gail dropped me off at Twizel  "Well," I said as we shook hands goodbye, "as they say in Canada, it's been a slice."

I had lunch in the Twizel shopping area - a very welcome hot pie, while I watched the people around me.  I bought some food at the local supermarket and got on the road again.  A short ride to Omarama was made with a guy who worked at the glider operation at the local airfield and owed his life to a glider-mounted parachute.  Not operated by him but by his dad before he was born.

A reasonably long wait at the edge of Omarama was made a little more interesting by the sight of a car approaching on the wrong side of the road.  I frantically waved them over as they passed.

From Omarama to Kurow I traveled with a driver and a truckload of frozen venison, heading from the Haast area to Christchurch.  Another perfect journey, dropping me off at the Kurow end of one of their old Waitaki bridges.  I stashed my gear under the bridge, where I'd slept the last time I'd cycled through and changed into light clothing.  I began my walk to Old Slip Road.

This road was built for access to Waitangi and Te Akatarawa Stations and others on the north side of the Waitaki River.  It was a continual maintenance nightmare, built across a gravel face which can be seen from the modern highway between Kurow and the Waitaki Dam.  The gravel face section was narrow, high and dangerous.  The 1930s Waitaki Dam project, the first hydro power project on the river, was planned to flood parts of the Old Slip Road and the local council were happy to see it closed and replaced by a steel bridge upriver of the dam - at central government expense.  The Waitangi Bridge is no longer there - removed for and replaced by the Aviemore Dam upriver from the Waitaki Dam, but was an impressive one in its day,  210 metres long with a central span of 70 metres which was a record for the country.

Flowering matagouri.

The last use of the Old Slip Road, before part of it was submerged, was to take gravel and cement to the relocated concrete mixer for the final work on the Waitaki Dam.  There was a suggestion in 2013 to use it for part of the Alps to Ocean cycle trail but that came to nothing.

It was an easy walk along gravel roads, edging closer to the Waitaki River.  Eventually the road started up the slope towards the slip-prone area of mountainside, the air made fragrant and sweet by the matagouri in flower - something I'd not seen before.  Approaching the slip area the first thing I noticed was a home-made sign, warning me off.  The second thing I noticed was the slip itself.  It seemed to have an animal track along the road line.  Would it handle the weight of a human?  Twice?  I made my way onto it.  And looked down.  The steep, loose gravel went all the way to the waters of the Waitaki River.  If the shingle gave way beneath me, I might just have enough time to text a farewell to someone before it was time to swim.  I stepped carefully back.

Sheep track across the slip face.

Looking down to the mighty Waitaki

Bridged portion of the road.  Maybe I'll try to get there next time.

Old Slip Road, photo held by the Kurow Museum.  I've read that passengers who were new to the road often preferred to walk behind the truck heading for Waitangi Station.

I spent some time resting, enjoying the view and taking photos.  Then I retraced my steps to the Kurow Bridge.  I filled my water bottle from the public tap.  I ate dinner and read until dark.  I used the last of the charge of my last replacement camera battery for some time exposure photos of cars crossing the bridge with their lights on.

Looking back from the Kurow Bridge

My third morning was another sunny one.  A highlight of waiting with my thumb out on the downriver side of Kurow was a passing tour bus.  A woman of a certain age, wearing nice clothes and heavy makeup, sat by the door with a microphone in her hand, explaining the passing scene to her passengers.  She passed the Russian General with jaw dropped.

It was an average waiting time for my first lift of the day, watching the personal movements of a small town beginning its day.  I was picked up by a welder who was taking a day off from - coincidentally - maintenance work on one of the Ohau power stations.  He explained how much work was required for hydro turbines, constantly patching the erosion caused by the phenomenon of cavitation.  Cavitation is what happens when flowing water drops to a low pressure and bubbles form.  When the pressure increases the bubbles implode, causing shock waves which stress and fatigue metal items such as propellors, pumps and generator turbines.  Every few months, I was told, a turbine needs to be stopped, drained and inspected for repairs.  All those "end of civilisation" scenarios where everything collapses but the electricity still flows for years were wrong, he said.  It's a matter of months at the most.  So be warned.

We reached Oamaru and I was dropped off at the south side of town.  It was a short wait for another entertaining encounter.  Two retired ladies who were returning from the national Scrabble champs - I think.  They were great conversation and so kind that they dropped me off outside my house.  

So  ended my search for Room 101.  The weather broke and it rained that night.  It still ranks as one of my better hitching experiences.