St Bathans

St Bathans had two thousand people in the 1860s and has around a dozen now. The Blue Lake beside it is not natural: miners sluiced away a hill of gold-bearing gravel with water cannon, cutting down some seventy metres, and when they stopped the hole filled - the colour comes from mineral suspension in the water against pale cliffs, and the whole basin is an industrial excavation that has become the district's set piece. A walking track runs round it. The Vulcan Hotel of 1882, built of mudbrick, leans visibly and is still a pub with rooms; it has a well-established ghost story that the staff will tell you without much prompting. A few other buildings survive along the single street, including the post office and the old constabulary. The lake sediments are also a significant fossil site, yielding the Miocene St Bathans fauna including an extinct mammal, which upended assumptions about New Zealand's prehistory.

What you'll find

• The Blue Lake - a flooded sluicing pit, seventy metres deep into a hill.
• The Vulcan Hotel - 1882 mudbrick, leaning, still serving.
• The single street - post office, constabulary and a handful of houses.
• The fossil beds - the Miocene fauna found in the lake sediments.

When to go

Any season; April for autumn colour and low light on the cliffs. Summer is very hot and exposed; winters are severely cold.

What to expect

It is a hamlet of a dozen people - two hours covers it. The hotel is the only service. Swimming in the Blue Lake is discouraged; the banks are unstable sluicing spoil. Access road partly unsealed.

Nearby

Naseby and Ranfurly are south-east; Alexandra and Clyde are south.

Key facts