Geocaches: History of Chelsea
We spent a wonderful sunny afternoon at Chelsea Heritage Park.
History Of Chelsea
In 1882 the New Zealand Government offered a bounty to the first company or group of individuals to set up a sugar refinery in New Zealand. Up to this time all sugar was imported from Australia.
The bounty was picked up by the Colonial Sugar Refining Company of Australia, which formed the New Zealand Sugar Company in a partnership between itself, the Victorian Sugar Company and a number of New Zealand businessmen including such well-known names as Horton, L D Nathan, W S Wilson and Sir Frederick Whitaker. This partnership lasted until the 1888 depression when it was absorbed by the Colonial Refining Company.
The original site of 160 acres (later expanded to 450 acres), was purchased because it had a large area of flat land for the refinery, fresh water from Duck Creek, deep water for a port, and building materials on site, all within four miles of Auckland city.
Construction started early in 1883, and took 18 months to complete. Clay from excavations was used to make 1.5 million bricks by hand - one million for the refinery and half a million for the dams across Duck Creek. Duck Creek was an ideal site for a sugar refinery. The Waitemata Harbour is at its deepest a few yards from shore. The Creek itself could supply the fresh water required for refining sugar, and there was enough land for the refinery buildings.
The refinery had hardly opened before the world sugar market collapsed. By 1887, after four profitless years, amalgamation seemed the only answer. Shares in the New Zealand company were exchanged for CSR shares. The legacy of this exchange are some 7,000 New Zealanders (more than in several Australian states) who own CSR shares today.
The name "Chelsea" came from the first customs officer at the Refinery, who named it after his home town in England-Chelsea.
Still on its original site, the New Zealand Sugar Company is one of New Zealands top 100 companies, and "Chelsea" has become one of New Zealands icon brands.
The Cache-of-the-Day took us to a little bush in one of the corners of the park. Can you see the cache in the next photo?
If you haven't spotted it, it's the grey rock in the middle. The rock is fake and there's an opening in the middle for a cache. Isn't that just a wonderful ingenious hiding place? I'm really amazed at the effort people go to for the perfect camouflage.
We spent a lot of the day walking around, enjoying the park and also getting a bit lost in the bush. Our very keen geocachers went ahead and left us stragglers behind to wander around in the bush looking for a path. Luckily there were parents in both groups so there was no real danger, but we were a bit dumbfounded when we couldn't find the path the others had taken and we decided to just wait for them to come back after they found the cache, which they did.
Now it was time for a bit of a break at the sculpture. This is an original old sugar grabber with a sugar cube (fake). Apparently there's a tiny microcache hidden somewhere on the sculpture but despite lots of searching and climbing, spiders and cobwebs, it eluded us. We wondered if it had been lost or maybe pushed in too deep for us to find?
All in all, one sweet afternoon!
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