Forty years of goldmining transformed Otago, with most present day towns owing their origins to the goldrushes. The dry climate, local pride and the work of Department of Conservation staff, has preserved the miners legacy - mud and stone buildings, intriguing machinery, golden sluiced cliffs, deep mine shafts and underground passages.
Look for the sign of the panning miner, which identifies some of these historic sites along the trail. Wild flowers and herbs grow in abundance along these trails. The main highways are sealed, but some old mining sites are on gravelled side roads. Most of the towns, except the very small townships, offer a choice of accommodation and eating places. Allow a day to travel from Dunedin to Queenstown to enable you to visit places en-route. Top up with petrol if heading to St.
Over 10, miners rushed to the Tuapeka goldfield, as the museum details. The 'goldrush' began almost immediately. By the end of there were 11, miners living in the 'Gully' and almost as many again, scattered around Blue Spur, Munroe's Gully, Wetherstones, and Waitahuna. They mostly lived in canvas tents and endured harsh and primitive conditions.
The registered claims were 24ft x 24ft. The gold lay 1. It wasn't long before the surface diggings were worked out and by more sophisticated methods were employed to extract the gold from greater depths from the hills.
Other methods required vast amounts of water, so with only picks and shovels, water races were constructed to carry water from the head-waters of the Beaumont and Waipori Rivers and later Reedy Creek. Water was brought from the Tokomairiro head-waters to the Waitahuna goldfields. In total there were kilometres of water races constructed to Gabriels Gulp, kilometres to Waitahuna and kilometres constructed to Waipori.
The water races were gravity fed and to provide a continuous flow of water over these distances, demanded skill and precision in their construction. The races fed overnight into a series of holding dams dotted around the area, from where the water was drawn off throughout the day for high pressure sluicing and excavating operations.
Many of these dams, which still hold water today, are good local fishing spots and the water supply in Lawrence is fed by some of those original races. The water races had to be constantly checked and kept free of any debris. This was the job of the 'raceman'. The raceman usually lived an isolated life, far up in the hills. From , blasting powder was used to break down the soft rock in an open-cast method.
It was tossed into a sluicing channel and the gold was separated and trapped on 'riffles' in sluice boxes. This method was found to be too slow and uneconomic, which led to the introduction of stamping batteries in when a quartz reef was discovered on the southwest side of Gabriels Gully.
Many tunnels were driven into the reef and the remains of both the tunnels, and stamping equipment can be seen while walking along the Goldfields loop track. At one time there were seven stamping batteries operating around Gabriels Gully and Blue Spur. They could crush up to 10 tonnes of 'cement' per day. Some of them had up to 20 stamping heads. Try to imagine the noise echoing around the 'Gully'.
The creek-bed in Gabriels Gully was raised 60cms a week with all the tailings and is now 50 metres above its original level. Before all the excavating began, what we know as Blue Spur and neighbouring Pollards Hill, were both part of the same hill.
The central part of it was blasted and sluiced away. The build-up of tailings reduced the fall of water required for the sluices. Around , hydraulic elevating was introduced to solve this problem. These huge constructions involved breaking the gravel banks down under high water pressure, then using a vacuum, created by the design of the apparatus, to suck gravel boulders and water, up to a higher level for processing.
There were three elevators working, the biggest of which raised material a little over 20 metres. From the three elevators, gold saving sluices ran out for distances of , and metres. Blue Spur and Munroe's Gully both became settlements with populations around The schools in both areas closed around Wetherstones over the hill had a similar sized population of mostly single men.
Wetherstones was noted not only for its several 'houses of ill repute' but also for the well known Harts Brewery which closed down in A hillside of daffodils planted behind the old brewery site is a local attraction each spring. A steady now of Chinese came after the main goldrush. They worked long, hard hours on tailings that had already been well worked over, and lived in primitive and frugal conditions. They were prohibited by a local body by-law from settling in the existing town and as a result several Chinese camps sprang up on the outskirts of the town boundaries.
Many eventually returned to China, although a few Chinese graves can be seen in one corner of the Lawrence Cemetery. Two well known Chinese who remained working in the area were the hotel keeper Sam Chew Lin in Lawrence, and 'Cranky Joe' the old hermit miner in Waitahuna.
Although many miners made fortunes, many others returned to their homelands disappointed. A few of the established farmers became wealthy supplying the goldfields with produce and had ready money to import the best of equipment to set up model farms. They built large homesteads, and employed architects to build schools and churches. They drained and cleared the land and created new farms on highly productive land. The peak of the gold boom was reached in , about the time the town of Lawrence was established.
It grew rapidly in the next 10 years. Many of the buildings constructed then, are still in use today. In , just one year ,oz of gold was taken out of Gabriels Gully. Gold production ceased around When the river is low one of the sunken dredges can be seen from the north end of town.
Nearby Symes Road leads 1km to restored stone Mitchells Cottage, which boasts a sun dial chipped from solid schist stone. In the town centre is the courthouse, of upright and solid character. Appropriate plaques are situated on some of these sites. Visit the Glenorchy Jetty Wharf shed for the early interpretation stories that make up Glenorchy's history.
Little changed from the 's when gold was first discovered in the mighty Molyneux river now named Clutha , this caused 10, miners to pour into this wild unknown country. When the gold was gone many of these miners turned back to their trades leaving us a legacy that no amount of re-construction or re-creation can replace. Today a walk through Clyde takes you past timeless cottages, hotels, churches and the post office from an era when as the gold town, Dunstan, Clyde dominated the district.
A visit to the Vincent county and Dunstan Goldfields Museum and the Museum extension will satisfy all those in search of the History of the area and its buildings with the fascinating stories of the goldfield pioneers. Let us begin our walk at the entrance to the Gorge. Here sheltered from the severe winds by the Clyde Moraine the first settlers pitched their tents.
The first paper by the Dunstan News was printed and distributed on December 30, Quite a sizeable paper, it was printed by Messrs Higgins and Co. The name of the paper altered to 'Dunstan Times'. Owners and Editors changed frequently over the years. Hill pulled out within a short time in favour of Mr S A Stevens.
Stevens Brothers carried on with the sons of H E Stevens until , when amalgamation of local papers took place, closing the Clyde office. The building, now a holiday house, stands as a monument to some fine journalism of over 85 years. Taken from early Cyclopedia of New Zealand. He arrived in Otago with his parents, who settled in Clyde, in , served an apprenticeship of five years at the "Dunstan Times" office, and afterwards worked as a journeyman for eighteen months.
Gye returned to Clyde to take charge of the "Dunstan Times" as printer and publisher. He was one of the founders of the sports and cycling clubs, but afterwards left the district. This journal was founded in by Mr G Fasche, who conducted it until The premises are on freehold land, and consist of a wooden building, which contains a Wharfedale printing press and a complete jobbing plant.
The paper is a weekly publication of eight pages of seven columns, and has a wide circulation throughout Central Otago. It was the home of Mr Rae, known locally as Tinker Rae. Here he set up in business displaying his wares, when not on the road.
Some years later a midwife had the cottage, living in the rear room and taking in single confinements in the front room. At this time there were no maternity hospitals. With ample midwives in the town, confinements were in the home. Some women, however, did avail themselves of this service. Morice in the early 's. The stone house first built is now covered by corrugated iron. Morice came to Dunstan, now Clyde, in He had no commitments, however he was so appalled seeing men suffering with frostbite, malnutrition and associated sicknesses that he set up a tent hospital complex around his dwelling.
Here he tended to men he found on the mining claims, in tents or out on the streets, and took them in for treatment. Morice was offered, and he accepted, the superintendency of the Grey Hospital in at a salary of An early arrival on the mining scene, he decided to be a provider. He set up a butchers shop in a front room of his home, and later a small store in the corner of his section. He was an excellent citizen, always to the fore for the betterment of the town.
Vicar - Rev. So are customers. Below the town, on the banks of the Arrow River, is a restored Chinese settlement - mute reminder of a colourful chapter in central Otago history. Buried under more rock, it later sunk beneath the oceans; on Most popular nz dating sites the petrified forest was revealed. Sage was grown on a cultivated block nearby, but it was found that water from a nearby hill could not be controlled and many thousands of plants were killed by a virus, which attacked their wet roots. Despite that, "we can take away from it that this volcano has big eruptions and it does it quite frequently". Later in the 's, the place was taken over by another licensee, who made his ablutions in the stone horse trough, Most popular nz dating sites, on the street in front, each morning. Besides a Court House it was the administration Headquarters of the Dunstan gold rush. Otago Goldfields Heritage Trust.
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