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Kurow Holiday Camp

 

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Welcome to Duffies Cottage
 
 

A brief history...

We are not sure exactly when the cottage was built. We suspect around the time of the break-up of the New Zealand and Australia Land Company late in the 19th-century. The Scots stonemason who built the two main rooms of the cottage also built Whites Cottage in the other branch of the Little Awakino and the dairy at the Awakino Station Homestead.


Whites Cottage, uninhabited, located in the other branch of the little Awakino.

Duffy himself was an Irishman his wife a Scotswoman daughter of a Scots coal miner. The lean-tos on the cottage and the outbuildings were built by Duffy himself. Duffy was a carter and an agricultural contractor in the time of draft horses and backbreaking labour. He grew potatoes in the paddock in front of the cottage where Awakino station now crop lucerne. When Duffy wasn't breaking in paddocks for himself or for other landowners in the district he would have been carting wool down the Waitaki Valley to Oamaru and returning with general cargo such as flour, tea, sugar and possibly the odd bottle of whisky.

The Duffies raised 13 children in the cottage. Attached is a photo of the youngest George Duffy. George tells me that by the time the youngest child was born the oldest had already flown the nest. The guest room was the boys bedroom and the girls bedroom was what is now the back lounge. The doorway into the boys bedroom is so low we often joke that when a lad grew to the lintel height then they were forced to make their own way in the world and had to leave home.


George Duffy - The youngest of the Duffy children raised in the cottage.

The children went to school in Wharekuri Village. Little is left of this village now except a pile of collapsed sun dried bricks marking the hotel and located not far from the Aviemore Dam. How the children got to school can only be guessed at. They were probably often bare foot and I can't imagine it was a very pleasant chore walking the three or four kilometres to school and then back again particularly in the winter.

Mrs Duffy grew vegetables in the back garden and kept hens. If Duffy wasn't available with a horse and cart she walked into Kurow with her produce for sale and walked back again with necessary supplies. My mother came up to the cottage with her mother in the late 1920s. Mrs Duffy was busy killing a sheep. I suppose if Mr Duffy's work took him away from the property and the family wanted meat on the table there was little alternative than rolling up your sleeves and sharpening the knife. In the 1930s trucks began plying the Waitaki Valley Road and the Duffies days as smallholders were numbered. At the height of the depression my grandfather bought Duffy out and Mr and Mrs and the youngest of the children moved to Oamaru.

Tony Baker-Proprietor


My Grandparents
Pioneers & early settlers at Kurow
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Rooms
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The original cottage consisted of only two rooms. The main room into which is located the cottage front door built in the style of a stable door is as it was when the Duffies were in residence. The main room is orientated around a coal range and Welsh dresser on the south wall. One of the first missions of the restoration was to remove the original coal range and size and photograph the remnants of the original Welsh dresser. We were then lucky enough to get an exchange coal range from Otago Castings in Dunedin. The replacement parts to make the new range were manufactured by an English tradesmen who worked for Shacklocks before that firm closed in the 1960s. The Welsh dresser built by Stu Robbie cabinetmaker in the style of the original Duffies dresser is made from recycled Rimu. The remainder of the furniture in the main room consists of a fold out sofa, a table and chairs and shelves and mantelpiece with simple decoration and utensils.

The other room in the original cottage is the master bedroom. It is simply finished with a comfortable double bed, a chiffoneir and a carved wooden table. You can pass from the main room through a low door into the guest room. The guest room tastefully finished with a limewash over the original stone walls was once the boy's bedroom. It has a separate doorway to the outside and stained-glass fanlight windows. Keeping to the theme of simplicity and looks works best the guest room is furnished with a double bed, a single bed and a manrobe. The front of the cottage being the main room, the master bedroom and the guest room are carpeted throughout. There is an electric generator positioned at the back of the tool shed. The generator is connected by a buried underground cable to a power point in the guest room. When in use the power point is principally for vacuuming however the generator is reliable enough to run a laptop or electric shaver. Our recommendation is that leaving electricity out of the equation whilst staying at Duffies adds to the wilderness experience.

The other internal door from the main room leads through to the back kitchen and lounge located on the western side of the cottage. The back lounge has an attractive aspect looking out to the north over the Waitaki Valley and up toward the Kirlcady Mountains and Mount Sutherland. The back door opens on to an attractively paved patio. Originally this area was two rooms. What is now the back lounge was once the girl's bedroom. The back kitchen has always been just exactly that the back kitchen. A large open fire above a flagged floor are as tastefully restored as they were at the end of the 19th-century. In the interests of convenience we have added shelving, a cupboard unit and a kitchen unit. All the wood work used in this room, the T&G ceiling, the T&G lounge floor, the cupboard, shelves and a kitchen unit are made from Duffies' macrocapa. We milled the timber during the restoration after we had to cut down two rows of trees to get light into the cottage. The kitchen unit comprises a cupboard with a gas fridge, cupboards for storage, a cutlery draw, a worktop, sink with running water and a gas hob. As with all these things sometimes technology tastefully applied is appropriate when aimed at modern-day convenience living.

The toilet and shower are 20m from the cottage housed in a separate outhouse. This building was originally Duffy's dray shed. Mrs Duffy obviously did the washing in this building as it is equipped with a fire heated copper. We have restored the copper although for convenience hot water is provided to the basin and shower via a gas water heater. The toilet flushes to a septic tank. Thus tastefully once again we have managed to balance as faithful a restoration as is practically possible along with the modern conveniences quite rightly expected to be available in the 21st century. In the days of the Duffies residence one can only assume the toilet was a long drop. Certainly there was no running water at the cottage. Duffy had a dam above the cottage fed by a water race. We have buried a take out in the creek and a pipe in the water race. There is a 25,000 litre tank buried into the hill side just below Duffy's old dam. A 25 mm alkathene pipe gets the water down to the cottage and toilet. There is a toby just outside the toilet located beside the outside tap. As far as guests are concerned it is our responsibility to ensure the water and gas are on. All that you have to do is arrive with the keys, open the place up and indulge yourself in the pleasures of a unique mountain retreat without concerning yourselves unduly about utilities.