New Zealand Gold Prospecting & Metal Detecting Forums Archive

every now and then one comes across a good story regarding ghosts

i will try to keep the stories relevant to gold

spent the last couple of days in the bush west of the mackley river as it flows into the buller river
if you follow the railway line towards westport for about 2km you will come across a place called "rahui"
interesting place found an old steel pipe running down a creek bed broken in places but thought still worth a follow it came out in what looked like an old town although nothing is there now a couple of old chimney foundations a rubbish dump and the odd bottle laying round
from what i have found out so far it was a gold town

to get there swim the buller river
or
take the mackley power line road and turn of to misery farm it is private land owned by white cliffs

maybe be worth a detect

I love it and now I really do want to come pillaging - I remember coming across a lot of fascinating areas and remains of huts and so on when I was across there working in the Grey Valley back at the end of the sixties - its grand country and I always did have a soft spot for it.

You want to get yourself one of the Fisher range of detectors Keith - methinks you would have a good deal of fun with it.

Hi Kiwikeith,

I have an AA map of Buller from about the 1970's, showing a footbridge across the Buller river, just upstream from Berlins. I remember looking for it on one of my early excursions to the South Island, probably about 1987, but it wasn't there.

The only reference I can find to it online, is it was where flood gauges were located in 1950.

lyell

just spent the last couple of days poking round the lyell looking for furry things

more interesting was the old house and mine sites, because i wasnt on the track you do find some great stuff
found the tunnel where the old timers diverted the river through the bed rock to give a dry bed for mining
found 3 old house sites lots of old rubbish kettles, and such like

for those going up that way have a dip in deep creek its well worth putting the box in there

hi gjj
thetrust that is building the ghost road have put a new foot bridge across from the car park and the access track come road means that its only about 10min walk to the rough creekwhere there is also a new bridge

the new claim is going to be 5" dredged they are just going to carry the gear in piece by piece

Hi Keith, There used to be a sawmill at rahui and also a coalmine. The sawmil closed sometime in the 1960s. The mine closed a bit earlier. Both were near the railwaystation. The swingbridge was mainly used by nz rail untill it was removed s ometime in the 1970s.An old tramline runs from the station towards lake rahui but is pretty overgrown these days. The coalmine was in the same area. The remains of the old sawmill and coalbins were still pretty evident in the late 1960s when i hunted in the area. Alluvial gold was worked along the banks of the buller and there are a number of shafts in the bush around the area. It appears from old records that a lot of gold was won from the area and the guy who has been dredging ther for a number of years does all right but he wont tell you much. The lyell is a very interesting area and you never know what you wil find when poking round off the beaten track. Lots of old camp sites and other interesting bits of mining paraphenalia.

excellent thread keith...i love to hear of old ghost towns...specially ones you can get to with a detector..lol