Waitaki River
(North of OAMARU)
A visit to Dunedin’s well-stocked and displayed Otago Museum supplied the information that a Moa abattoir had been discovered at the mouth of the Waitaki river. As hunter gathers tend to kill for the pot, not having access to refrigeration, and Moa hunting was a year round occupation, I wondered ‘why an abattoir?’ I considered that a more likely explanation was the butchering of Moas to provide ships stores prior to a long voyage.
A look at the map also indicated that whilst the Waitaki head-waters now include three artificial lakes, part of a huge hydraulic generating operation, one of the tributaries was the River Ahuriri. One of its headwaters also paralleled the Lindis Pass, famous as a route into the goldfields. So a decision was made to centre our survey on Omarama, working on the principle that had served me well, on my Roman surveys at Pooley Bridge in the Lake District and again at Fort Augustus, Loch Ness, Scotland: Omarama was a bottleneck, and thus all traffic must pass through it. And so it had!
A wander down the banks of the River Ahuriri, some 10m wide and fast flowing, showed that it had been navigated in the Chinese / Roman style. At the entrance to the Golf Club, we located a complete ore handling facility and barrack block. The site covered an area c. 80m x 50m. A 6m wide canal some 200m long, still clearly visible, had been constructed in an arc from the river returning further down stream. Water was forced through this canal by dam. At the centre of the arc, five chambers each 6m long had been constructed, each connecting to the other by a controllable duct, thus forming a series of washing chambers. Crushed ore would be introduced to the chambers, over wooden channels. The lighter dross would flow down stream, eventually leaving the heavier gold behind. A poor “Fossicker” used a riddle, a modern miner a reciprocating inclined “Wifley” Table and the ancients, the multi-wet chamber method. They all worked.
Adjacent to the washing area are several smelter ramps, their adjacent combustion air houses being powered from water bled from the input to the washing chambers.
A further still-visible canal arcs inside the outer one. This gave access to a 20m x 10m harbour, its depression full of water-loving plants still visible. Between the canal and the river a man made platform c 40m x 20m, with stoned edges is clearly visible. Part had originally been walled and contained the living quarters. At the harbour end of the platform, MAS indicated the foundations of a 9m x9m building which had housed a double water-wheel-driven crusher plant. The aqueducts were also located by MAS.
COMMENTS
This area was first surveyed by Mantel on behalf of the British Government in 1852. He also noted the existence of local Maori cave paintings (now open to the public). But did not mention any timber, (one wonders if considerable deforestation had already been carried out by the Chinese to provide charcoal for their smelters.) The first European settlers, John Chapman and his family, arrived in 1856, having traveled the 320k from Christchurch by bullock wagon, averaging 16km per day. Chapman a minister and farmer, established a farm and did considerable business selling mutton to the gold miners using the nearby Lindis Pass. There are no records of either Chinese or gold recovery plants at Omarama. Information thanks to Marion Aubrey’s History of Omarama. (now out of print).
T. C. Bell, U.K., Feb. 2003
