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These days Lauder’s claim to fame is a climate so dry and an atmosphere so clean and pollution-free, NIWA (National Institute of Water and Atmosphere Research) has its atmospheric research facilities just a few kilometres up SH85 from the Lauder Station site. Here vitally important research is being carried out into the depletion of the ozone layer. (http://www.niwa.co.nz/our-services/online-services/uv-and-ozone)

Lauder was very much a railways township; even its long-closed school was called the Lauder Railway School. During construction of the Otago Central Railway, ballast, the coarse rock that provides the foundation for sleepers and tracks, was quarried nearby.

Lauder was also once a tablet ‘switch out’ station. The tablet was a safety device to prevent more than one train travelling on a section of line at the same time. Each section of line had only one tablet that had to be carried in the cab of the train. It a tablet was not available to be uplifted, the engine driver knew not to proceed further.

Lauder – Ida Valley

• 10.5 km separates Lauder from the Auripo Station site

• From the Lauder Station site it’s only a few kilometres to the start of the Poolburn Gorge. This takes the Rail Trail from Manuherikia Valley into the Ida Valley. The Poolburn Gorge proper starts once the curved, concrete Manuherikia Bridge No.1 has been crossed. The trail is a very gradual climb through cuttings and magnificent tunnels (don’t forget to take a torch). Entrance facings to tunnels are local schist rock, hand-shaped by stonemasons using mallets and chisels. On this side of the Poolburn Tunnel No. 2, the remains of several construction workers' huts can be reached by an access track at the tunnel approach cutting. Much of the trail through the gorge is atop enormous embankments, built by teams of men with little more than picks, shovels, wheelbarrows and horse-drawn tip-drays. Poolburn Gorge is home to the rare and endangered Käreärea, the New Zealand falcon. Just before leaving the gorge to traverse the flanks of Blackstone Hill, the Rail Trail crosses the 37-metre high Poolburn Viaduct; the third highest railway viaduct in New Zealand.

• Lauder is an ideal start point for a one-day cycle or walk through the Poolburn Gorge. This can be a there and back experience, or alternatively Rail Trailers can be met by their transport on the Ida Valley side at Thurlow Road or the Auripo Station site. Both easily accessed from the Omakau-Ida Valley Road.
  

Lauder – Omakau

• 7km separates Lauder from Omakau
• The trail is relatively flat, passing through farmland of the Manuherikia Valley.

Two tunnels give the trail through Poolburn Gorge lots of kid appeal Photo: Chris Lidgard	Manuherikia Bridge No.1, at 110.6m the trail’s longest bridge, marks the western (Lauder) end of the Poolburn Gorge Photo: Chris Lidgard
At 37-metres, Poolburn Viaduct at the top of the Poolburn Gorge is New Zealand’s third highest viaduct. Photo: Chris Lidgard

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