Gold rush heyday still etched on landscape
FROM sluicings to ruins, to the remainder of settlements long gone, Central Otago’s gold rush heyday is still etched on the landscape.
From 1861, the Central Otago goldfields were a frenzy of hard work as pioneers and adventurers flocked from all over the world in pursuit of striking it rich.
The small towns such as St Bathans and Clyde, and the vast landscapes, have been left with an an indelible imprint of the miners’ activity.
About 57 tonnes of Otago gold was sold on the world market at the peak of the rush.
An estimated 40,000 diggers worked claims from Kyeburn to the Kawarau.
Among the many new towns were Hogburn (Naseby), Blacks (Ophir) and Oturehua, where many relics of the goldmining days are still to be found, as well as remnants throughout all of Central Otago.
As the easily gained gold from the riverbanks started to run out the prospectors moved up to the terraces and gullies, where highpressure water cannons were used to pound rock faces into washable gravel.
A classic example is the Bannockburn sluicings, a stark landscape of tailings, caves and tunnels.