It's Autumn at St Bathans Blue Lake

Today we left the coastline and small fishing village of Moeraki and headed inland over the Pigroot track where bare brown hills were covered with tussock and snow capped mountains beyond. The sun was mostly hidden behind thick cloud, just peaking out every now and then. We detoured many times today, taking the full day to get to our destination of Alexandra. Driving off the beaten track to gold mining towns of Naseby and St Bathans, hunting down stone cottages and bridges along the way. Hubby is most interested in stone buildings as one of his relations was a stone mason in the wide area of Central Otago, many years ago.

Today there were many choices for blip but just love the calmness of the Blue Lake, which wasn't blue today at St Bathans.

The land formations were created from the sluicing operations that began in 1837 when John Ewing (1844–1922) formed the St.Bathans Channel Company, to mine the Kildare Hill Gold Claim in St Bathans. His company constructed a tailings channel and introduced hydraulic elevating to work the claim. As this work progressed the Kildare Hill Claim became the site of the deepest hydraulic elevating operation in the world, that would turn a 120 metre hill into a 68 metre hole. Work stopped in 1902 when there was insufficient fall in the tailings channel to carry away the tailings. By 1905 John Ewing was bankrupt as a result of poor investments in other locations.

Natural drainage from the surrounding hills filled the hole with water and created the present day lake. The Blue Lake is a key feature of modern day St. Bathans and is used for swimming, fishing, bodyboarding, and kayaking.

Thank you for all the lovely and encouraging words, stars and hearts for my Yellow Eyed Penguin yesterday, it was a fantastic experience with them being just 2 metres away from us - unbelievable!

Time now to put the jug on and turn in for the night, we're moving on to a well known destination tomorrow - Happy Wednesday blippers :)