More than 40 outdoor curlers spent last Friday (July 25) on the Centennial Ponds competing for the traditional Idaburn Trophy - after a series of hard frosts across the district.

It’s not often the conditions for outdoor curling are ideal to play on natural ice, but the Naseby ponds offered a pleasant surprise this season.

“We play on natural ice if possible but in recent years it’s been an absolute rarity,” Idaburn Curling Council secretary Al McKnight said.

The trophy is an important fixture on the outdoor curling calendar each year, and each of the two curling councils - representing half of the clubs in the country - had a total of 20 players involved.

Several players from each club were nominated to play matches over the day, and ice master Jock Scott spent hours every night leading up to the event, lining the Centennial ponds with more water for it to freeze so it was thick enough to play on.

Al said the Idaburn Trophy was an NZ Curling Association trophy and, other than the bonspiel, it was the only way members from the two councils were able to play together.

There hasn’t been a bonspiel played in Central Otago since 2015 - when all of the clubs from around the country are given 36 hours to get to the ice.

Meanwhile, the Idaburn Trophy was won in a close fought encounter by the Naseby Curling Council on Friday, on a count back of 11 points after the two teams drew five wins each.

Al said Idaburn “had a good run lately” of winning the trophy in recent years, and this time it was Naseby’s turn for the win.

He said it was highly unlikely there would be any further outdoor curling competitions played this season - on his farm on Monday afternoon he said the temperature was a balmy 17 degC.

“It’s pretty much gone for this year."

Meanwhile, skaters were still using the Manorburn dam over the weekend, with many videos posted on social media of people out enjoying the winter conditions.

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