11 Rankers Reviews
7 Face-to-Face
7 Hokitika
Marios Gavalas
Author And Researcher
I'm Marios, delivering the best of Aotearoa's nature walks to your device.
I've personally walked hundreds of New Zealand's tracks and spent months in libraries uncovering interesting information on New Zealand/Aotearoa. And you'll find a slice of that research on this page - enjoy!
FREE MAP - The best of 21 nature guidebooks on one map.
The Then and now of Ross’s 150 year gold mining heritage
In Ross, follow signs to the information centre, where SH6 does a sharp 90 degree turn. There is parking by the heritage centre and toilets.
Following the track anticlockwise, pass the Old Gaol, reconstructed water wheel and sluice nozzle and continue on the rough section of Mt Greenland Road.
After 15 minutes, a signposted foot track leads into the forest and climbs to join an old section of the water race. Look for excavations alongside the track, old pipes, tunnels, timber and stone works. There is an evocative relic miners hut near the dam and sluice gate.
Traverse the picketed cemetery before descending via St James St back to the carpark.
Early sluicing at Ross commenced in 1865 with watercourses being diverted to flow over the gravel faces, causing a collapse. Low pressure nozzles were soon replaced with high pressure ones.
Shafts were sunk and horses used to ascend and lower cages. When steam power arrived in 1868, poppet heads materialised like metal triffids over the Jones Flat. The clang of machines went day and night as shafts were sunk deeper under the West Coast coastal plain. Groundwater seepage into the tunnels finally put paid to deeper excavations and by 1872 underground mining was abandoned.
Ground sluicing followed. This technique exploited the cliff faces of moraine by systematically disassembling them using high speed water jets. An elaborate water race channelled water to the cannons, which forced the fluid through a decreasing diameter pipe, to finally be released with force. By directing the nozzle, the gravels could be dislodged from the working face. The fine rock was then washed over sluice boxes, where gravity separated the heavier gold from the finer sand.
Hydraulic sluicing was responsible for nearly 40,000 ounces of gold being recovered from the Mont d’Or Mine. The elaborate system of dams, water races, sluice gates, piping, ditches, tunnels and flumes became the infrastructure with which the gold was won.
Mining in the Ross area ceased in 1897.
Feature | Value | Info |
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Location |
South Island ▷ West Coast ▷ Hokitika |
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Categories |
Patrick
Ranking: 10/10
Nice, interesting 1 hour walk.
Mike Fricker
Ranking: 9/10
19Oct18. A good walk through the bush. A few interesting info boards and relics.
Cemetery was interesting. Some of the inscriptions show just how hard life was back then. Quite a few were from Ireland, a couple of them from close to my home in UK.
There could maybe be a bit more info on the way round the walk but it was good nonetheless.
Rima
Ranking: 10/10
Brilliant. Old tunnels and at the end you will end up on the river where they found the first piece of gold. If you look in the sand you will see some tiny shiny gold flakes:)
Each camping location is approved by a regional council in NZ. So if it shows on the map, you’re allowed to stay.
The Rankers Camping NZ app, is also in association with…
Kerry Painter
Ranking: 10/10
A great family walk. Even though the path is quite steep at times for younger children there are plenty of sights to keep them interested such as the miners hut, the cemetery and the small tunnels.
Harriet Holm
Ranking: 9/10
Lovely forest walk.
Ray Coombe
Ranking: 9/10
Interesting and informative restoration of historic buildings and walk around mining sites and cemetery etc.
J Meindersma
Ranking: 8/10
Track one hour.
Tom Bos
Ranking: 8/10
Interesting
PamB
Ranking: 7/10
Nice walk with some explanations of the gold mining history.
Thanks to all the good people working for the NZ Department of Conservation - for all your hard work - making NZ more beautiful, accessable and healthy! Cheers 😍