Tarras Golf, Cromwell and Dunstan Golf Club at Clyde

From Wanaka we travelled along the north side of the Clutha river towards Tarras which is on the early part of the Lindis Pass road. Again you are surrounded by the barren hills, now with sprinkled bushes, and then the opening out into the valley with flatter lands, a less jagged skyline, outcrops of schist rocks and boulders, sheep, cows, pivot sprinklers creating vivid green squares on the brown landscape and then the first winery we had seen for a while.

Tarras golf club is a memorable 9 hole country course without a clubhouse. 

The grand entrance of the golf club!

We parked on the opposite side of the road to the first tee which has a box on a pole beside it where you pay your green fees of only $15 each. It's run by volunteers, the man mowing near us on number 2 fairway telling us that it, surprisingly, it has around 500 members most of them from overseas, mainly America. We're not sure where they socialise after a game as the only building there seemed to be for equipment storage, but we could see a small shed with a toilet.

Putting under water!

It surely was a true country course with cow and sheep poo, mostly dried fortunately, grassy knobs and dandelions on the dried "fairways", fences around the greens to keep the animals out and long walks between the greens and the next tee.

Just another fairway gate!

A couple of the holes are on the opposite side of the road. It was sunny and hot but better to play on than I was expecting - just took us a bit longer to play than normal because of the extra walking between holes.

Cromwell was our next stop, passing vineyards on the way and seeing the Clutha River flowing into the man made, very blue Lake Dunstan. Cromwell seems  such a new town with many new builds underway and the historic area, which we walked around on our last visit, not being visible as you drive in. 

On stage at Lake Dunstan!

The new NZMCA park which is well situated, being just over the road from Lake Dunstan, was our stopover for the night.

Rotary Glen park. 

Only 10 vans allowed there although it is a very large area with trees around - we were number 8 and being a brilliant but very hot day it was good to get the chairs out and have a read in the shade under the trees with a gentle breeze blowing when we arrived. The only downside is that the whole area is very dry and dusty which means a little more housework than normal will need to be done!

The lake is long, beautiful, blue and very peaceful. Len thought about having a fish but there was a lot of weed in that part of the lake. There is an excellent cycle track alongside the lake which, again, we did last time here so in the morning, after a wander around that part of the lake, we left to do the normal dumping, water top-up etc. This time it is about playing some more golf courses, the ones we didn't do when cycling the Otago Rail Trail in 2013.

With this in mind we hit the busy road again passing the free camping spots by the narrowing lake just stopping at Champagne Gully to check the fishing for which there was still too much weed.
After driving past the Clyde Dam and through the village we found the Dunstan Golf Club which is right next to the campground. This is one of the few courses where you are not allowed to stay overnight because of the council bylaws.

The flat 9 hole course is in a great setting with houses over the road from No 1 fairway and the awesome hills on the other side. It looked so pristine compared with Tarras where we had just played the day before. More expensive at $25 each but really good to play on having fast fairways with the wind behind ( slow against!) and nice greens which were very kind to me. Different tees for the second 9 holes made it more interesting and although there were bunkers aplenty there were no water hazards.

Wonder where this will end up?

We had a bit of a delayed tee off waiting first for the Friday mens group, who just play 13 holes, to come through no 10 - it was close to 3.30 before we got started so later than usual before we left.

A POP in the country in Dunstan Road, near the cycle trail about 10 minutes out of Clyde, looked like a good place to stay and it was. Busy with about 10 NZMCA vans there, a toilet, tub, clothesline, book exchange and preserves/jams for sale it was a nice peaceful spot although we just missed out on Happy Hour! Payment was by donation and we bought a little jar of tomato relish as well.