Gold (alluvial and quartz lodes), stibnite lodes, gold dredging, coal, plant fossils.

Bannockburn is 3 kilometres south of Cromwell, by crossing the bridge over the Kawarua River. It was named by surveyors J.T. Thomson, and Alexander Garvie after the well known Scottish battle. There is a collection of houses, and the historic J.T. Stewart general store building, now a gift shop.

The road which follows the lake immediately after crossing the bridge, is said to contain plant fossils in road cuttings. Fossils are found in a one metre thick shaley material, overlying lignite seams, or very carbonaceous mudstone and siltstone. Found is mainly leaves and cone scales of such trees as Northofagus novaezealandiae, Allocasuarina avenacea, eucalypts, conifers, broad leaved angiosperms, and fern fronds.

The same area contained small coal pits in the latter part of the 19th Century, for domestic use, and later to power gold dredges. In keeping with coal pits in the region, they were small scale, short lived, and/or regular ownership changes. Coal pits were also located on the east side of Bannockburn Creek south of Kawarua River, bordering the main road just south of Bannockburn, and at Shepherd Creek further south of Bannockburn. Little evidence remains at the locations.

Dredging occurred in the river, and lower Bannockburn flats from 1896 to the World War One years. The Electric Company 1, 2 and 3 dredges, and the Rise and Shine 0, 1 and 2 dredges appear to have been the most successful during this period. In 1904, the Electric Company dredge 2 achieved a world record at the time of 1265 ounces of gold from a weeks work. The number 1 dredge sank in 1906. There were several other dredging companies in the area, often short lived before the company was voluntarily liquidated.

Immediately east of the housing is a large white stark area of ground and hydraulic sluicing for alluvial gold, from the fields discovery in 1862 to 1871. Walking trails visit tunnels, the stone lined Menzies Dam, a ruined stone cottage at Stewart Town, and water races. The Long Gully section of the track is on private property, and only open Sundays and Mondays. Some areas can be seen from the road, and a short 10 minute walk. The area is surrounded by vineyards, making it all a very civilised experience. Gold and gravels have been eroded from the mountains above, the flats showing as a north plunging syncline of Manuherikia Group rocks, overlain with Pleistocene Carrick auriferous gravel.

The Menzies Dam was built by John Menzies and David Stewart, as the final port of call for the Carrick water race. This started at the headwaters of Coal Creek in the Nevis valley, and rang for miles and miles, across the Duffer Saddle, then eastern side of the Carrick Range to the dam. Its construction took several years in the early 1870's. The water race can be seen above the Young Australian water wheel mentioned later. Stewart died of a heart attack in 1883, while Menzies fell into a sluicing pit to his death while walking home one night in 1894.

In 1870, the auriferous quartz lodes were discovered above the sluicing ground, largely following Smiths Gully right up to the crest of the Carrick Range. A large number of companies opened mines across the 1870's before activity died away.

These locations can be walked to, although steep. South of Bannockburn, take the Schoolhouse Road west, then Quartzville Road to its end, and the start of the walking track. The walk is 6.5 kilometres over 2.5 hours. Considering the number of mines that once existed along the road, several batteries, and two small towns, not a lot remains. Diggings for some of the major mines border the road, and the impressive Young Australian waterwheel, at the end, sitting isolated on a windswept tussock grassed mountain slope, just before the crest of the ranges.

The Carrick Range represents a recumbent F2 fold, as an anticlinal structure, with numerous faults as part of a Cretaceous graben complex, developed immediately east of the range. The area is Otago schist, often weathered down to 20 metres below the surface.

Most gold mining only occurred in the oxidised zone, effected by supergene enrichment of the gold. There are low angle shears with milky to glassy quartz, with carbonate locally intergrown, with minor sulphides, ankerite, magnesian siderite, and calcite. Arsenopyrite is found as aggregates up to 10 mms, with gold, rare arsenical pyrite, scheelite, and disseminated sphalerite, chalcopyrite, galena, pyrrhotite, low Ag tetrahedrite, and bournonite.

There are also later high angle gold bearing breccia lodes, up to 1.2 metres thick, steep dipping, ten to hundreds of metres long, trending north north-west to west north-west, occupying brittle dilational structures. The milky quartz shows crustiform growths, void infilling, some bladed intergrowths of quartz and ankerite, magnesian siderite, trace kaolinite and muscovite, and disseminated trace arsenopyrite, pyrite, chalcopyrite, galena, with gold in quartz and attached to arsenopyrite.

To the north-west are three sub-parallel stibnite lodes called Buchans prospect. At the surface there is a range of oxidised phases, and secondary species. They are gold bearing veins with abundant stibnite, in a breccia matrix.

Most of the schist at the surface is weathered, but unaltered schist contains quartz, albite, muscovite, chlorite, and minor to trace epidote, actinolite (more common near the lodes), stilpnomelane, carbonates, titanite, ilmenite, zircon, apatite, tourmaline, graphite, arsenopyrite with gold, rutile, and pyrite.

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References