No products in the cart.
Cambrians, off the St Bathans loop road, was originally settled by Welsh gold and coal miners in 1863. Along Cambrian Road, a number of mudbrick cottages still survive and are used today as holiday cribs. Cambrians is just one of a number of mining settlements which grew up along the eastern side of the Dunstan…
(Originally known as Blacks where the pub is still called Blacks Hotel) – Today, Ophir is a peaceful town close to the Manuherikia River, 26 km from Alexandra just off SH 85 to Ranfurly. It’s rich history comes from its many original stone buildings which include the restored Post and Telegraph Office built 1886, the…
A rich auriferous site lies exposed by the early miners who worked these terraces by sluicing, leaving behind tailing channels and herringbone tailings which from the air resemble fossil ferns.
Some 20km from Cromwell on the road to the Lindis Pass (SH 8), the Bendigo Loop Road takes you to the Bendigo goldfields, one of the few successful quartz mining areas in Otago. Mining in the early years, from 1862 to 1866, was spent working the creeks for alluvial gold. Later, quartz reefs were discovered…
In this magnificent, remote valley, with its upper and lower sections separated by a gorge, one can still get a good impression of what a small Central Otago mining area would have been like 90 years ago. The Nevis can be reached from Bannockburn by climbing to 1300m over Duffers Saddle on the Carrick Range…
Across the Bannockburn Bridge, 9 km from Cromwell is a tortured yet beautiful landscape sculpted by the miners sluicing for gold from 1865 to 1910. While walking around these diggings, you will discover fascinating evidence of water races, dams, tunnels, shafts, crumbling cob and stone buildings and old orchards at Stewart Town. Beyond Bannockburn, off…
CROMWELL was originally known as The Junction, and is now a modern town, redeveloped because of the Clyde Dam project and Lake Dunstan, which started to fill in 1992. In the Mall, the Cromwell Museum displays gold relics while down at the lakeside, part of the original commercial centre, Old Cromwell Town, has been painstakingly…
After crossing the Crown Range, the road from Queenstown to Wanaka follows the picturesque valley of the Cardrona River where a few remains of the Cardrona diggings can be found. Most of the valley was destroyed in the big flood of 1878, leaving little behind. A few of the miners returned, not to work the…
Macetown was transformed by the miners’ determination in the 1860s from a severe and stark environment into a bustling mining town. Macetown is now a ghost town, which was always remote and its climate harsh, but it only closed down when the mines eventually failed. Hundreds of exotic trees grow on the once treeless landscape…
Arrowtown Rests gently but firmly on its past, lingering as a living memory of a substantial gold town of the early 1860s goldrush days. The town was the first mining settlement in the Wakatipu District and its historic character has been faithfully retained by stringent town planning regulations. Historic miners’ cottages shelter under an avenue…
