Macraes Flat

P1

Macraes Flat is a small settlement in Otago, New Zealand with a historic background as a gold mining town. The place is associated with the name Macraes gold mine, which today is the greatest gold mining area of New Zealand with two open pits and an underground pit.

Geography

The settlement, which consists today of only a few houses, lies at an altitude of 500 m, about 55 kilometers north of Dunedin in the Waitaki District, on the South Island of New Zealand. In the north and west, the Taieri Ridge are within sight, while itself runs up to 700 m high-lying rolling mountains in the distance to the south. In the east it goes from Macraes Flat on the regional road Macraes Road down into the valley of the Shag River, and there connects the town on State Highway 85, Palmerston and continue on State Highway 1 with Dunedin.

History

The history of Macraes Flat starts at around 1847 and that the first explorations of a European, the land surveyor and planner of Dunedin, Charles Henry Kettle ( 1821-1862 ), commissioned by the New Zealand Company. From before the time of the Europeanization of the area is not known. After the squatters Kettle ( squatters ) who tried to make the "infinite " vastness of the country with land grabbing their luck came. The first legitimate owner of the so-called run 109, should belong to the Macraes Flat later, was the Swedish- born Charles Hopkinson, one of Otago's early settlers, who first lived in the Maori settlement Otakou after his arrival in 1848. It was but then the Hopkinson employed Shepherd John Macrae, who built his cabin in the wide pastures and her namesake was. More than the John Macrae came from Scotland and came from a family of Clan MacRae is not known about him.

1862 the first gold was found in Macraes Flat, but only three years after the start of the Otago Gold Rush ( 1861-1863 ) fell in 1864 the prospectors in droves in Macraes Flat a. After prolific gold finds, the population grew in just one year to over 500. 1866 finally followed the opening of a post office and about 1882 the well-known in Otago Stanley 's Hotel. In 1889 the Golden Point Quartz Mining Company founded the grazed until 1917, 5 km from Macraes Flat removed the so-called Golden Point in underground mining for gold and quartz. From 1898 until the 40s and deposited alluvial gold was dredged in the rivers and lakes of the area. Then it was quiet in the settlement. With the present up to this point techniques, the gold could no longer win economically.

The renewed search for gold in the area around Macraes Flat, combined with the opportunity for a more profitable mining started in 1982. According to numerous holes finally was zone in the geologically interesting, 30 km long and up to 120 m thick Hyde - Macraes Shear ( break in the soil ) and find the estimated degradable gold deposits to about 10 years ( latest estimate that up to the age of 35 ).

In 1990, then started the gold mining in the open pit mine today, with the highest gold production in New Zealand and the expansion of underground mining, is operated by the Australian-New Zealand company OceanaGold Corporation.

Today

Macraes Flat would be nothing without OceanaGold today. The company is equipped with information and scoreboards everywhere, sponsoring art projects, organized tourist guides and awakens to possess the settlement that impression. The extreme stress of nature by toxic mining of gold encountered by restoration projects and regular exposure 10000-12000 rainbow trout annually in surrounding waters, what the anglers of the region excited and the safety of the gold mining industry to demonstrate.

The Heritage and Art Park Project ( HAP) OceanaGold Macraes Flat trying to make more attractive. Per year today there are around 3,500 tourists visit the Gold Mine, of which the place but does not have much because they do not usually stay. How to keep the hope for the future as a leisure and recreation area.

Frasers Pit, one of the pits, should in some years, if not longer required, not be filled, but are padded to a lake in a natural way from the rain. In 100 years, this would be completed, it is estimated.

Swell

All sources of information and links in English

• Helen M. Thompson, East of the Rock and Pillar, Otago Centennial Historical Publication, Whitcombe & Tombs Ltd.. , Dunedin, 1949.
• Simon Cox, Dave Craw, Field Trip Guides - East Otago gold - Annual Conference, Geological Society of New Zealand Inc, 2003 ISBN 0-908678-97-5.