Est. 1885
Wedderburn. Why does the name seem so familiar? Probably because it's writ large across a big green railway goods shed in one of Grahame Sydney's most ubiquitous paintings of the Maniototo area. And rightly so, as the story of the Wedderburn Tavern is one inextricably bound with the story of the railway.
The hotel itself was built in 1885, when it served as a coaching stop for travellers and a watering hole for local farm workers, coal miners and gold prospectors. But it wasn't until 1900 that the place really came into its own, for that was the year that the railway came to Wedderburn, linking it with Ranfurly, 15km away, and Dunedin at the other end of the line.
For years, logs from the nearby Naseby forest, sheep headed for the freezing works, and locally mined lignite coal were loaded on to the outbound trains at Wedderburn and the inbound trains brought people and much needed goods, for which read supplies of Speight's, to the hotel. The railway fast became the absolute lifeblood of the place.
But it wasn't to last. Increasing numbers of private cars, the lifting of restrictions on trucking and improvements to the Pigroot road saw the railway lose its puff. Passenger services to the district ended in 1976 and goods trains stopped running in 1990. It looked as if the Maniototo, and its myriad railway pubs like the Wedderburn, were set to lose their patrons.
These days, however, things could not be more different. And that's all because of - you guessed it - the railway. Not long after the line had closed, talk began of converting it into a cycle trail of some sort. This plan had its doubters (you're likely to meet some of them in the bar at the Wedderburn, but don't worry, they've changed their minds about it now).
In 2000, the Otago Central Rail Trail opened, covering 152km of the old line between Clyde and Middlemarch. The trail brings anything from 10,000 to 15,000 people a year through Wedderburn and a lot of them stay a night or two, with good reason.
The tavern is almost bang on the halfway point of the trail, near its summit, so it is the perfect stop to reward yourself with a pint and a feed. It also sits in an extraordinarily picturesque part of the country: think big skies, golden tussock-covered hills and the snow-capped peaks of the Ida Range and the Kakanui Mountains. This is Central Otago at its finest.
As well as being a must-visit on the rail trail, the Wedderburn Tavern is very much the social centre of the local farming community. There'll always be a local farmer or three propping up the bar, and they're usually good for a yarn or two about life in the area.
- Excerpt from The Great NZ Pub Crawl by Ned Barlett & Jono Corfe