So much for feeling safe. On Sunday 21st, yesterday, I was waiting for Mike to pick me up by the Bush Creek cafe by the river, when I got into conversation with a vagrant guy I’d seen around town who pans for gold all day. He was raving about kettles and bits of wood being nailed to trees and I realised with a sinking feeling that the guy had been through my camp. Mike arrived and we drove up. 4-5 minutes up the rugged road to Macetown (4-wheel drive essential). He’d got into the lock-box, he may have been trying that combination lock for days. He took my good gloves. But the worst thing was he’d dug big holes around the site, including a huge hole in a corner of Hut 1. Police and Heritage NZ have been notified.
not pleasant, but not enough to dampen our excitement at realising we had found more huts. Because it wasn’t just that small hut, Hut 4 by the road riverside, but I now understood the layout of settlement. Beside Hut 1 is Hut 2 and Hut 3. We’d been walking around and over them all this time. As is the way with archaeology. so I got my trowel out to confirm this. Very tight grass covers these mounds. Hard going. But within an hour I had the lovely straight line of a robust wall 40mm thick. Came home feeling pretty happy. Told the local journalist Scoop we need to go National with this. We’ll be getting together this week. Maybe when the council visit on Friday, and hopefully, Heritage NZ.
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Jan MorrisonProject Manager of an archeological dig of a 1800s European mining settlement near Arrowtown, Central Otago. Archives
April 2021
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