Allan Simpson is my cousin, just a couple of years younger than me. He grew up about five kilometres south of my childhood home, “The Mains”, Waikaka. Allan’s mother Joan was my father’s sister. She married Jim, a beekeeper. Allan and I often saw each other during family visits, at high school, and at church. We attended the Waikaka Presbyterian Church – when the church was sold and transported to Central Otago, it featured in Episode 10 of Season 1 of “Moving Houses” (TVNZ+ 2021), as did Allan’s parents who were married in it in 1956 (see https://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/homed/latest/127275054/moving-houses-couple-has-plans-for-old-church-but-first-it-has-to-negotiate-the-devils-staircase). The church is now a heritage function venue. Allan went on to become an opthamologist (now retired), living in Christchurch, while I lived in Hamilton after studying in Canada. I haven’t seen him for decades. Allan came across my TumbleStone Blog while doing some research about the history of the Waikaka area. Among the Posts dealing with the area, my family and its history, are Maps as a Resource: New Zealand’s “Maps Past”, Part One; Maps as a Resource: New Zealand’s “Maps Past”, Part Two; Waikaka’s Auriferous (Gold-Containing) Quartz Gravels;and Jasper Stones and Petrified Wood, Shepherd’s Creek, Waikaka. Allan sent me this local history piece he had written, which deals with, among other things, the gold dredging of the Waikaka Valley – I asked him if I could post it here and he agreed. It was written for his family and it hasn’t previously been published. The locations of Maitland and Waikaka can be seen on these maps:
“Maitland and the Waikaka Stream: How Green Was Our Valley” by Allan Simpson (June 2025)
Behold Te Aunui/Mataura Falls!
It is hard to imagine a more iconic symbol of the extractive, industrialized colonisation that deposited our forebears in Murihiku, Aotearoa – one of the ‘uttermost parts of the world’, and literally the last part to be reached by human migration, whether by first peoples or Europeans. The Alliance Freezing Works and Mataura Paper Mills were established on either side of these falls, which were once a beautiful ‘mahika kai’ site for Maori, who came from as far north as Oamaru for lampreys and eels. Or it could have been our local tourist attraction. But the mills changed that, using the water and even blasting away some of the Falls to facilitate the industrial process, conveniently hiding from public view the desecration.
So, despite growing up on the west bank of the Waikaka Stream, which joins the Mataura River just a few kilometres upstream of the Falls [at Gore], I never saw this sight – until quite recently. And when I did, as an Instagram post, I thought it must have been of somewhere in Eastern Europe! And the unheralded name change of ‘Waikakahi’ (waters of fresh water mussels) to ‘Waikaka’ signals another huge extractive enterprise that, once again, I barely registered while I lived at Maitland, half way up the Waikaka Valley.
I assumed that I grew up in a natural, if deforested, rural landscape. There were the ‘rolling hills of Southland’ on either side of our valley and green paddocks all around our house. But the valley floor, I realise now, had become unnaturally flat and uniform. It had been systematically turned over and flattened out by up to 28 alluvial gold dredges operating on it from 1896 to 1926 – covering the whole width and 20km length of it, from Waikaka to MacNab. The dredges scooped up “wash” gravel from 10 to 25 feet down, sluice-boxed it to extract the gold, then reposited it all back in jumbled order.
But at least the dredgers responded to protest against the destruction of agricultural land by learning how to remove the topsoil first. They could then lay it back on the surface to reinstate the livelihood for the other settlers that wanted to graze sheep on the land. Growing up, I did hear the paddocks surrounding our house referred to as ‘tailings’ recognising their modified status, but I didn’t realise until reading Allister Evans “The Waikaka Saga” (1962) just how comprehensive was the mining and dredging of our valley.
My maternal Great Grandfather, James Paterson, had worked in gold-mining operations on the Shotover River, gaining such experience that saw him head-hunted as a consultant on similar mining claims in British Columbia. On his return, presumably flush with cash, he attended the Great Gore Land Sale of 1894, that broke up the huge Knapdale Run, leased by McNab. And he purchased 1600 acres of land in three lots adjoining the Waikaka Stream, ostensibly for the purpose of farming.
But my Great Grandfather was soon involved with investor syndicates that ran three gold dredges, all under name of ‘Paterson’, on his own freehold land as well as other claims. He was one of the main advocates for having the Waikaka Stream declared a ‘sludge channel’, to facilitate dredging (Evans, 1962, “The Waikaka Saga”, page 277).
In February, 1900, a deputation of gold dredgers “waited upon the Right Hon, Mr Seddon, the Premier, at the railway station, Gore, on the 2nd inst. for the purpose of urging that the Waikaka Stream be declared a sludge channel” (New Zealand Mines Record, February 16, 1900, quoted in Allister Evans, 1962, “The Waikaka Saga”, page 34):
“The Premier: How many men are there working on the dredge claims?
“Mr. Ibbitson: Some twenty-eight.
“The Premier: How many farmers are there employed in that ten miles?
“Mr. Ibbitson: Well, there are no farmers. They are Crown Tenants.
“The Premier: That is all the same. Crown Tenants are farmers. I want to know how many there are for the purposes of comparison. There are ten miles of settled country and twenty-eight miners on the four dredges. How many people are there living on the land in that (sic) ten miles?
“Mr Ibbotson: Below the dredging operations, possibly forty or fifty”.
After some more questioning “the Premier then went on with a lengthy dissertation and explained the exact information he would need so that Parliament could deal with the problem” (Evans, 1962, “The Waikaka Saga”, page 35).
In the end, as we all know, a sludge channel was proclaimed. And the run-off caused the failure of the lamprey mahika kai site at the Falls (Atholl Anderson, 2025, “The Welcome of Strangers, A History of Southern Maori”), and other degradation of the Waikaka and Mataura Rivers.
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I know our awa, river of origin, more fully now, recognising that our childhood home at Maitland sat upon, and was surrounded by, pastured river flats that were ‘tailings’, a land surface modified and flattened by meandering dredges seeking alluvial gold. Green – but not so natural.
One dredge, called the “Lady Florence”, ended its days in its final water-table pond just a paddock or so north of our house. It was dismantled but the pond remains to this day, half-linked to the stream. Another chugged its way up Garden Gully, just across what would become the railway line next to our house and got stuck up the gully. Another was the “Lilliesleaf” on Adam Nicol’s farm across the river.
And one year, after a flood in the Waikaka Stream, we found an old punt washed out of the bank opposite our house. It could have been from the Lady Florence, or the Lilliesleaf, and would have been used for ferrying men or lignite coal across the man-made ponds to the dredge. The lignite was carted behind bullock or horse from local pits for the purpose of running the dredges’ steam engines.
Those 28 dredges were all from the third period of the Waikaka Goldfield, from 1886 to 1926. The first period, from 1867 to 1880, began when “Donald McKenzie discovered gold on the western slopes of the terraces about three miles below the present Waikaka Township and three-quarters of a mile east of Fleming’s railway siding” (Evans, 1962, “The Waikaka Saga”, page 6). This spot of gold discovery (red cross in map below) was about a kilometre north of our Maitland home (blue cross in the map below), across the river at the base of ‘rolling hills’. These hills formed the eastern boundary of the valley of the main Waikaka Stream, separating it from the ‘Little Waikaka’ further east on the other side. This discovery started the initial rush of panning, sluicing, and water-race and dam construction.
And this period produced another major enterprise to which I was oblivious growing up. Its business end, like the site of first gold discovery, was no more than a kilometre from our house. That was the Great Waikaka Water Race! To be fair, there was no sign of any remains in our time.
In order to control water for sluicing at a higher head of pressure than in the Stream, miners built an impressive water race (Evans, 1962, “The Waikaka Saga”, pages 8-13). Starting from the source of the Waikaka Stream (our awa) on the slopes of Mt Wendon (our maunga), it picked up water from other small streams, some collected in dams. Then it passed the Wendon Valley Church that my paternal Great Grandfather, George Styles, helped build (and preached in), then slipped through a tunnel before entering dams at what would become Waikaka Township. Then it required a stretch of built-up aqueduct before continuing down the valley to the Forks area, across the river from where our house at Maitland would be built later (although I don’t recall ever hearing our locality referred to as ‘The Forks’). And here the water was used for sluicing out gold from the low hills between the two Waikaka Streams and above their confluence.
The second period of gold recovery, 1880-1896, comprised panning, tunnelling, and sinking of shafts. Chinese, drifting here from other spent goldfields, played a dominant role, often reworking claims that Europeans had finished with. During this period, “The Waikaka Saga” (page 31) records the following story that involved my Great Grandfather, James Paterson. It was only brought to light in the fourth period of gold mining, the period of sluicing by the Stewart Gold Mining company during the 1930s.
“On private property the owners always charged £5 whenever the surface of the land was broken and a tunnel or shaft was put in. They also had to pay 1s. per man per week to work there. The Chinese who worked Mr Paterson’s property in the Sandy Knowes (Sunny Hills) area paid these fees. However, the Chinese were shrewd enough to make only the minimum number of surface entrances, and in the Sandy Knowes area in one place they tunnelled in under the freehold boundary and took out hundreds of cubic yards of rich gold-bearing wash without sinking any new shafts. This remained a complete secret till the 1930’s when the Stewart Gold Mining Company commenced sluicing the area. Then, much to the surprise of the owner, who got no fees, and very much to the disappointment of the sluicing company, the sluicing operations revealed the extent to which the Chinese had tunnelled in under the hill into Mr Paterson’s freehold property… No one ever went down the Chinese shafts to see what they were doing or where they went. It was now all revealed. Working in from the leasehold area, the Chinese had gone right in under the freehold for about 400 or more yards and had completely mined an area of two acres. With shovels and wheelbarrows, they had completely excavated this area, leaving a huge underground cavity three feet high, the depth of the (gold-bearing) wash… It appears the Chinese wheeled out to the leasehold some 8000 yards of wash, pulled it to the top by windlass, and again wheeled it down to the Sandy Knowes stream where it was washed and the gold recovered”
Despite that dubious business relationship between the Chinese and James Paterson, his son, Leonard (my Grandfather) was, according to my Mother Joan, kindly disposed to the Chinese families that lived around Sandy Knowes, especially the Mee Changs. Knowing they were poor, he took them mutton and other produce, transported their children to Sunday School, and generally looked out for their welfare.
My Grandfather was more of a farmer than gold miner. Along with all the farmers around Waikaka and further upstream in the Wendon Valley, one of his challenges was transport. Whether it was carting lime from Gore to their farms or delivering wool and grain to Gore (or Bluff), the lack of good transport limited the profitability of their land. So there was a clamour for a branch railway line to be built when such was happening in other parts of the country.
In fact, in 1904, the Government did pass legislation authorising the building of the branch railway, but typically did not provide any money for the task. Some local businessmen got tired of waiting and set up their own finance company to fund the project. It was a complicated and convoluted loan and capital-raising scheme with government underwriting – what we might call a public-private partnership today (Evans, 1962, “The Waikaka Saga”, pages 184-191).
The first sod was turned on April 18, 1907, and the line was completed 20 months later at a cost of £70,000 (£20,000 over budget). The tracks went right past the front gate of our home, which was situated about halfway between Gore and Waikaka, and halfway between the Maitland siding and the Fleming Siding. I think I can remember watching the steam train chugging past, or it may have been just the photos I remember? In any case, it must have been an impressive sight.
“The Waikaka Saga” (pages 191-192) records some of the social history of this train, with one delightful account about its weekly ‘shopping day’ trip to Gore:
“The well-known landowners in the district all used the train to travel to Gore on Saturdays to do their business, and when the business day was changed to Friday, they went on that day. These grand men of the past used to have great arguments and discussions on the train, so much so that it became quite an institution. By the time the train reached Gore quite a nucleus of folk had gathered round these learned men to listen to the discussions that took place on all sorts of subjects and to enjoy the witticisms that passed between them. There formed quite a ‘Dr Johnson’s Literary Club’ but unfortunately there was no James Boswell to write down the proceedings.
“From Waikaka came Messrs. Dan McKenzie, John Turnbull, Harry Pemble, James Paterson, David Lamb, John Kirkpatrick, Mathew Kirkpatrick and George Styles. All these men were intensely interested in politics, religion, world affairs, agriculture, and so on. Even before the train had pulled out of Waikaka Station the argument had started and they had forgotten to buy their tickets and so scrambled on at the last minute. The guard at the time was Charles Green who scarcely would have dared to take the train out of Waikaka without a full muster of theses intellectuals. When the train got under way Green then had to issue the tickets and he well knew that he had to get them sold before Maitland or he might never have been able to interrupt, so earnest would be the debate, for at Maitland got on one, Andrew Harvey, who was famous as a debater and arguer and who added even more fuel to the fire. Thence on to Waikaka Valley where, at Willowbank Station, the late Duncan Gilchrist made his triumphant entrance. He had a bicycle on which he rode to catch the train. When he saw the train about two and a half miles away he set off, just getting to Willowbank in time, that is if there was a ‘time’. In fact, if there was no shunting to be done he was invariably late, but so great was the prestige and authority of this man that the guard dare not leave Willowbank without him – if he had the whole cosmos would surely have felt the jolt.
“Gilchrist had been chairman of the Southland County Council, was a profound reader and thinker, and was more than able to hold his own with his comrades from further up the valley. He was really the ‘Dr Johnson’ of them all. He could argue, discuss, debate, or lecture on almost any subject. Agriculture, veterinary science, meteorology, Esperanto, navigation, astronomy, politics and economics were all well within his grasp, and it was on these latter two subjects that most of the debates took place.
“But time was too short – by the time they got to Gore they were really only warming up and so long after the train arrived they sat in their carriage and continued their deliberations, much to the amusement of the local railway staff and their fellow passengers. On one occasion the debate had reached very serious proportions indeed. The train was shunted on to the siding in Gore and there they argued with apparently much heat.
“A new station master had arrived and, hearing the din, became so concerned that he consulted with his fellow workers as to what procedure he should adopt and asked their advice as to whether he should call the police at once to settle the quarrel. However, he was greatly relieved to know that this was quite customary and laughed it off with the rest. On the way home, too, they were so earnest in their deliberations that Andrew Harvey, who was arguing with John Turnbull, forgot he was at Maitland and found himself still arguing when they reached Waikaka.”
The last train trip before the line was closed took place on September 9, 1962. It was a specially arranged excursion from Waikaka to Wyndham Domain for a traditional ‘picnic-with-games’. And this is where I finally entered the frame, aged 5, sharing a seat on that last train ride with my younger brother, Russell, after embarking at the Maitland Siding.
Allister Evans, in “The Waikaka Saga” (page 1), described the four periods of gold mining as:
1) 1867-1880: The initial rush period by the European population, a period of panning, sluicing, and water-race and dam construction.
2) 1880-1896: The period of panning, tunnelling, and sinking of shafts in which the Chinese played the dominant part.
3) 1896-1926: The period of dredging, by private and public companies, and private individuals.
4) 1930s: the period of sluicing by the Stewart Gold Mining Company.
But that wasn’t the end. Waikaka Gold Mines Ltd has applied for approval through the controversial 2024 Fast-Track Approvals Act to re-dredge 95 hectares of tailings at Chatton corner, temporarily diverting the Waikaka Stream [Otago Daily Times]. They ‘want to recover gold worth $170 million’. Another company began similar operations in the same area in 2000 but closed in 2002 because of poor returns, leaving large, unsightly dredging equipment on the site which is still there to this day [as can be seen at the end of this Post].
NOTE: Early March 2026 – The Waikaka Gold Mines Ltd application has received consent from the Gore District Council and Environment Southland – see newspaper article here.
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MAIN SOURCE OF HISTORICAL MATERIAL: Allister Evans, 1962, “The Waikaka Saga: The History of Waikaka, Greenvale, Wendon Valley, and the Waikaka Gold Field” (Waikaka Historical Committee).
