Times are tough, but not in the gold industry. Mark Price meets two Central Otago men excited by the potential of small-scale gold mining operations.
A Central Otago farmer and a Wanaka earthmoving contractor have joined forces to create their own gold mine to help see them through the recession.
Ben Falconer owns the land - 47ha on Bonspiel Station, near Poolburn - and Gus Gordon the diggers and the screen.
And, after a successful month of digging in an old lake bed, the pair believe they have an arrangement that could be duplicated by other Otago farmers and contractors.
Neither would say how much gold they had recovered, but it was enough to keep three employees busy on diggers and their hopes high the mine could continue for another two years.
Mr Gordon cautioned that while results had been "reasonably steady", the amount of gold remaining was unknown. "[It] could stop tomorrow."
Work in Wanaka for Mr Gordon's contracting business had dropped dramatically with the downturn in property development.
"That's why we've gone into the gold mining. And it's b..... good. And I get paid.
"At the end of contracting, we have still got a lot of outstanding debts, unpaid debt - people that have gone broke, or are going broke, or just can't pay."
Mr Gordon said he had a long interest in gold and had begun mining on the West Coast, near Hokitika, about six or seven months ago, before setting up the Poolburn operation.
While there was a big investment in machinery, Mr Gordon said he had 80% of the equipment he needed before moving into the operation.
Normally, he had trouble finding digger drivers, but at the moment there were "plenty of them about".
"Obviously, there's not the jobs around there was and there's not the money around that there was."
He believes there is potential for many more small-scale mining operations.
"We employ four people in ours and there could be hundreds more like mine if there was more land available, made available, to be mined."
Mr Gordon said they were fortunate Mr Falconer's late father, Keith, had obtained a mining licence and resource consent in 2003 for the land they were working. Getting approval was a big problem in other areas.
"In some cases in Central Otago, like the Nevis Valley, where there's really a lot of mining left to be done, there are people who have got licences but they can't get resource consent."
The area on the 4000ha Bonspiel Station was mined in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
The New Zealand gold price was fluctuating above $1500 an ounce at present, compared with $400 in 2003.
"At the moment, it's a very very good industry to be involved in," Mr Gordon said.
One of the resource consent conditions was that the land be returned to the way it was before it was mined.
Mr Falconer said the lake bed had high salt content and he believed the mining would improve the quality of pasture.
