Pleasant Terrace, Skippers, Queenstown-Lakes District, Otago Region, New Zealandi

Regional Level Types
Pleasant Terrace	- not defined -
Skippers	- not defined -
Queenstown-Lakes District	District
Otago Region	Region
New Zealand	Country

Alluvial Gold.

Pleasant Terrace is one of several terraces along the upper Shotover valley, with auriferous gravels. At 150 acres it is one of the largest with gravels extending to 150 feet deep. Early alluvial miners extracted a fortune of gold from the site.

The terrace is 500 metres south of the Skippers town site, and can be walked to, or accessed by 4 wheel drive. It is bordered to the north by Pleasant Creek, south by Stony Creek, and east by the Shotover River. Other terraces, namely Londonderry and Burke extend to the north, and Stony Creek Terrace to the south. An un-marked and un-maintained walk extends up Stony Creek from the southern end of Pleasant Terrace to a siphon crossing high over the creek, and other gold mining relics.

As an example of the money sloshing around in the early years is that of Henry Eager in 1872. He discovered Grace and party on the neighbouring claim tunnelling into his claim and extracting gold. Eager was awarded 8000 pounds in the Warden's court as damages. Considering this insufficient he went to the Supreme Court. The bailiff seized the claim, but was forcibly removed by Grace and a dozen men. Further litigation followed with Grace eventually paying 4000 pounds, however legal costs for both the parties ran into several thousand. It was of little consequence, Grace took out another 38 000 pounds worth of gold from his claim over the next three years.

Due to the depth of the gravels, further mining required capital, and companies were formed. The Shotover Gold Mining Company worked parts of the terrace in the early 1870's. Later the Skippers Sluicing Company operated on the terrace, re-floated as the New Skippers Sluicing Company, until operations ceased in 1917.

In 1877, Robert Johnson acquired the water rights for the terrace, and began sluicing a 40 acre claim. This continued until he died in 1908 aged 75, and is buried at the Skippers cemetery. Egbert Sainsbury then took over the claim, and mining continued to 1909. He died in 1919 at 81 years of age, after falling to his death trying to move sheep away from a precipice. Mining the terrace continued to varying degrees to the 1950's.

The terrace contains a spectacular white sluicing face (as does Stony Terrace to the south), evidence of three dams (the most obvious marked with willows), a house at the northern end built by Robert Johnson, then occupied by Egbert Sainsbury, and various water races.

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