But I can indulge in some hotel history, like that of another Cardrona pub, the long-gone All Nations Hotel run by Gioachimo La Franchi 150 years ago.
By 1873 Cardrona beckoned with about 100 miners on the ground and Gioachimo and Anna, now with four children, built the All Nations Hotel there.
It opened on 5 December 1873 but, sadly, about this time their 18-month-old son Enrico died after falling from a chair.
During the floods of October 1878 the hotel was put on a dangerous lean and a drinker complained that the pub was on such an angle that, "to get your sixpenny worth you needed to take the glass into your hand while filling it because if you left it on the counter it wouldn’t hold a fair nobbler on account of its slant."
Incidentally, in 1869 Cardrona had become the last place on the goldfields to maintain the shilling price for a nobbler (a glass of spirits) after a strenuous campaign by miners to have the price reduced to sixpence.
The All Nations Hotel was the venue for dozens of community activities, including election meetings. In March 1879 Wakatipu MP Henry Manders, a staunch supporter of local option which threatened the future of many goldfields pubs, spoke at the All Nations and a newspaper reported, "as the meeting was being held in a hotel, it is hardly to be expected that the supporters of local option would muster in force. The meeting was finally reduced in numbers to three men and a boy, to whom Mr Manders returned thanks in a most impressive manner."
On polling day Manders received no votes at all at Cardrona and in the electorate overall came last.
The All Nations had Cardrona to itself in the early 1880s (perhaps the Cardrona Hotel was resting) when La Franchi applied for a reduction in his licence fee, claiming to be 16 miles (25.7km) from any other hotel and without a reduction he would be forced to close as had other hotels in the neighbourhood.
Inspectors reported "most favourably in respect of management and accommodation" and the pub survived.
Travellers also gave glowing reviews.
"At the All Nations Hotel I received a cordial welcome from mine host La Franchi whom I found to be as genial and obliging as ever."
When the Crown Range Rd opened in 1884 business increased, "to the host and hostess of the hotel at Cardrona the fact of commercial gentlemen now making this their line of travel must be somewhat cheering and we can only say that in Mrs La Franchi they will all find an exceedingly obliging hostess, one who, at all times, will prove the words that a traveller’s warmest welcome is to be found at an inn".
In 1885 a patron wrote of Gioachimo, "The spirit of adventure is calmed, but yet, though the frosts of time are on his head and his shaggy whiskers are plentifully tinged with grey, there is a merry sparkle in his eye that leads me to the conclusion that Gioachimo La Franchi was a jolly good companion."
In 1887 the La Franchis sold the pub and returned to mining but in November 1889 while heading to Arrowtown to deal with mining paperwork 58-year-old Gioachimo’s horse shied and he was thrown to the ground. He died from his injuries. Anna died in Cardrona in 1924 at the age of 89.
Fred Daw of Oamaru later wrote: "The hotel would accommodate about 10, but owing to the rush there were about 30 so the landlady and her servant were kept busy and as fast as they could bring in supper it disappeared. Mrs La Franchi was one of the few good women a man sees in a lifetime, really good from the heart, no cant or humbug about her. No man ever passed their place hungry or wanting a night’s shelter. All were treated the same and welcome to the best she had, rich and poor alike and considering the poverty of the district and the difficulty of getting some of the stores, she was a wonder."
In 1901 her daughter Ettie married Jim Paterson the legendary long-serving owner of the Cardrona Hotel.
The All Nations Hotel burned down in 1895 but the hall attached to the pub became the Catholic Church which can still be seen in Cardrona’s heritage area and the La Franchi legacy is commemorated by a small road in a new subdivision in Cardrona being named La Franchi Lane.
Like its hotel, Cardrona holds on to its history.
— Jim Sullivan is a Patearoa writer.
