The iron pipe is a survey mark on our local Gentle Annie hill

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Description The iron pipe by my slasher is a survey mark on our local Gentle Annie hill. It possibly dates from the C19th? Spots in this locality were worked for alluvial gold between the mid 1870's and WW2. There was also coal mining and quartz mining tried in the area but with little success. Native trees were felled and sawn by the miners and later some of the remainder were accessed by tramway to feed a local sawmill.

Among the regrowth bush on the lower slopes there are remains of miners tracks, water races, tailings and bush tramways.PhotographerGlenn Johnston Last edited by: Glenn Johnston

Map^[1]ContributorGlenn Johnston

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Location (city or town)HokitikaLandmark (Place)Gentle Annie Hill Last edited by: Glenn Johnston

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Category TagForestryMining

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Date Created18th April 2021CommentsGlenn Johnston
This one is the one near Hokitika. It lies approx 3km south of the Lake Kaniere Road and and a bit over 2½km north west of Conical Hill. The County Council had tracks to it in the C19th via Butchers Creek track off the lake road and also from Kokatahi via Blue Bottle Terrace and the Blue Bottle branch of the Kaniere River. [In the early days Butchers Gully was called Bouchers/Boutchers Gully after the original prospector who caused a rush there and Blue Bottle Creek was called Right Hand Branch Kaniere River] In the C20th a sawmill tramway provided access to the lower slopes of the hill and now days a forestry road lies about 1 km to the west.

Roi Gooch
Been in that area myself. Lots of old workings, even found an old hut site.

Glenn Johnston
I'll do a bit more poking around this area to see if I can find coal and quartz mine shafts and adits. I must have been close to where the coal was once worked as I could smell sulphur in the headwaters of coal creek and found remains of a benched track and some small clearings. As for the quartz there was shoad stone in a couple of the creeks including some very large blocks of quartz in a tributary of Lowries creek. Regarding alluvial gold workings I came across some patches of workings and know of others from previous trips. This trip was to climb Gentle Annie and have a recce to try and pin down where the historic coal and quartz mining took place.

Glenn Johnston
Have any members of this group been to the old coal mine or to the hard rock prospecting drive put in by the Hokitika Quartz Mining Company at Gentle Annie?

Roi Gooch
Have heard there was an copper mine around Blue bottle once, not sure if it was true. I've been up and got onto the old track but then lost it due to the forest regenerating over it. Lots of conglomerate in the head waters towards Lake K. I have often looked at the map and thought I'd like to have got to the quartz vein up there near the old coal mine.

Glenn Johnston
The track is tough to follow in places between Blue Bottle Creek and Butchers Gully but I've found it at both ends and bits in the middle. I was having a good run following it the other day back toward Butchers then lost it on a swampy cut over terrace only 800m from where I'd followed it to from the the Kaniere Lake road heading in the other direction on a different trip. I've also heard talk of a copper mine on Blue Bottle Terrace but haven't checked it out. There was some alluvial gold mining there and perhaps somewhere along the line gold mining has been confused with copper mining?

Craig Angela Bell
I have been to the coal mine in the 1970's. There were three drives that You could walk into and the coal was easy to collect not far in. Unfortunately they were destroyed when the forest service built the bluebottle road.

Glenn Johnston
Craig Angela Bell thanks for that. I thought the coal drives were further east. Perhaps I'll be able to find some of the higher level workings as I've read the coal was first sunk on from a shaft then at lower altitude they drove in to hit the coal seam which dipped steeply.

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The iron pipe is a survey mark on our local Gentle Annie hill

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