Coming Across New Zealand’s Abandoned Mines

The Calandra Report / By
‘Reminiscent of Yukon Gold Rush’

Mike McKone, friend, a British Columbia resident and subscriber-investor, and his wife, Linda, are traveling in New Zealand right now. On the SOUTH ISLAND.

New Zealand — abandoned mining equipment: a pelton wheel, powered by water  [Mike McKone credit]
Mike makes some comparisons to the Klondike Gold Rush across Yukon and Alaska.
“Over the years, I have been to many active mines and long-since abandoned ones. Smelters,  too.”
Mike continues, “I was swimming in the hole blasted out of the rock in a long abandoned gold mine up the hill from Okanagan Falls last year.”

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Mike, when in the Yukon two summers ago, got to see a well managed exploration camp (Banyan Gold BYN) and an active open-pit heap leach operation (Eagle Gold Mine Victoria Gold VGCX).
“My wife, Linda, and I are in New Zealand right now.

The Otago region of New Zealand was scoured by prospectors. The first recorded gold find was in 1852. Between Clyde and Cromwell on the Clutha River, Horatio Hartley and Christopher Reilly found gold and when they showed up in Dunedin with 32 kilograms of gold sewn into sacks made from their clothes … the gold rush was on. I won’t labour you with the number of prospectors and details but taken, on average, the suppliers did best.”

South Island, New Zealand
Mike says he was “intrigued by a stamper battery in Clyde and found out that we could see the in-situ rebuilt Come-in-Time stamper battery. And we did. Very cool. They mined on the other side of a nearby hill and had a narrow gauge track for ore cars that hen took the material down by aerial tram to the stamper battery, which was in the creek bed so they could power it with a pelton wheel.”

He continues, “We were way up in the hills in a mining district and saw the remains of buildings, adits, shafts etc but my goodness someone built a dredge. In about 1880. It looked like the dredge I saw in Dawson City.”

Unlike Dawson (Yukon), this was a failed venture like most of the New Zealand gold prospects, Mike says.

“We went to Gillespies Beach and saw an 1890 Von Schmidt suction dredge. It had technical problems so they covered it to a bucket dredge. But it failed financially. Then in 1932, someone who presumably knew the previous financial failures built a huge Dawson- size dredge in the same area. Same result.”

Mike and Linda were at the Ross gold mining area and saw miles of tunnels and flumes to power hydraulic mining.

He says,
“In the past week we have seen gold panning, chipping exposed veins, significant underground mining, stamper batteries, dredges, open pit, placer mining like right now in Dawson and hydraulic mining.”
TCRs, there are several mostly complete stamper batteries in New Zealand. Mike McKone notes that in one image here, “you can see the cams that lift the weights  … then the cam ends and the weight falls.”

Please click any image to get a full view.
Thank you, Mike and Linda. See you in the northern hemisphere.
— Thom Calandra
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Thom Calandra ​is a ​writer and an investor. Research and material are meant as editorial opinion.​ He is not a professional investment adviser. Please do not consider his reporting as a recommendation to buy or sell securities.