On 07 Dec we drove to St Bathans, a gold town established in 1863. (1) The mud brick Vulcan Hotel is fab! (2) Pipes took water to the workings. (3) Blue Lake was originally 120m Kildare Hill which was mined to a 68m deep pit dubbed the ‘glory hole’. Mining ceased in 1934 when the operation was in danger of undermining the town. The pit filled with water to become Blue Lake. (4) There were many Irish among the miners, this mud brick church is St Patrick’s Catholic (1892). Central Otago, New Zealand.
To see a photo of the pit when mining was still happening, which shows the big tall hydraulic elevator, here’s the link: pit and hydraulic elevator
Text +pics 1/2 by Liz, pics 3/4 by Nigel; Exploring Colour (2022)
Exploring Colour 
The sharp shapes around the Blue Lake give the landscape there a very dramatic look – are they the result of the mining?
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Yes.. because they’d use big water canons to high-pressure blast the hills to remove unwanted material and wash out the gravels to get at the gold. Incredibly destructive. But now we have these weird ‘badlands’ that in modern times are very interesting to look at!
If you go to the link I’ll give you, and scroll down to “Hydraulic Elevating’ – then click on the pic at the right. Once enlarged you’ll see what looks like St Bathans with the hydraulic elevator and guys in the foreground with water canon and huge streams of water. They did that up at the hillside level as well – hence all the exposed ground and weird shapes.
Link: http://www.uniquelynz.com/nzgold.htm
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Wow! That would have really changed the landscape!
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Massively. They literally turned the place upside-down!
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