Saint Bathans
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St Bathans, formerly named Dunstan Creek,<ref>Reed, A.W. (1975) Place names of New Zealand. Wellington: A.H. & A.W. Reed. p. 371</ref> is a former gold and coal mining town in Central Otago, New Zealand. The settlement was a centre of the Otago gold rush, but mining has since long ceased. It is now largely a holiday retreat due to the preservation of many of its historic buildings.
St Bathans is well known for Blue Lake, a small man-made lake created by gold-sluicing that transformed the 120-metre high Kildare Hill into a 168-metre deep pit. After mining stopped in 1934, the hole accumulated water, which turned a distinctive blue hue due to minerals from the surrounding rocks.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> It is currently a camping spot, and swimming is allowed in the lake.
The town was named for the Scottish Borders village of Abbey St Bathans by early surveyor John Turnbull Thomson; the Scottish village was the birthplace of Thomson's maternal grandfather. It is 40 kilometres northwest of Ranfurly and 60 kilometres northeast of Alexandra, near the Dunstan Creek, beneath the St Bathans Range and Dunstan mountains.
The area attracts many visitors intent on gold-prospecting.
Vulcan Hotel
The Vulcan Hotel (at Template:Coord) is a restored public house located on the main street of St Bathans, and is the town's main tourist attraction. Originally called the Ballarat Hotel, the building was originally constructed in 1882 of mud brick.<ref>The Encyclopaedia of New Zealand - The Vulcan Hotel</ref> The building is registered as a Category I historic place by Heritage New Zealand.<ref>Template:NZHPT</ref> The building is notable as possibly the country's most famous haunted building.<ref>TVNZ - One News - The Ghost of St Bathans</ref> Room 1 of the hotel is reputedly home to the spirit of a young woman, thought by some to be a prostitute known "the Rose", who was strangled to death in the hotel in the 1880s.<ref>New Zealand Ghosts - St Bathans Template:Webarchive</ref>
Geology and palaeontology
The town lends its name to the St Bathans fauna, a rich palaeontological section of the lower Bannockburn Formation of the Manuherikia Group, with an age range of 19–16 million years ago. The layer in which the fossils are found derives from littoral zone sediments deposited in a large shallow freshwater lake bordered by an extensive floodplains.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> The fossiliferous layer has been exposed at places along the Manuherikia River close to the town, and is the remnant of the prehistoric Lake Manuherikia.
St Bathans mammal
{{#invoke:Labelled list hatnote|labelledList|Main article|Main articles|Main page|Main pages}} In 2006, scientists reported the finding of nontherian mammal fossils in the Manuherikia Group near St Bathans. Previously it had been thought that bats were the only terrestrial mammals native to New Zealand. Dubbed the SB mammal (for St Bathans), the scientists' analysis indicates that the creature has a lineage distinct from monotremes (egg-laying mammals), eutherians (placental mammals) and metatherians (marsupials).<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Other taxa
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The St Bathans formation also bears fossils of moa, mekosuchine crocodiles, turtles, skinks, tuatara, geckoes, at least eight taxa of waterfowl including the endemic Miotadorna and Manuherikia, a petrel, Accipitriformes, rails, a possible seagull, herons, a palaelodid flamingo, pigeons, parrots, a swift, an owlet-nightjar, songbirds, the enigmatic Aptornis and a primitive kiwi, Proapteryx.<ref>Worthy et al. 2013</ref>
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Road to Saint Bathans
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Old gold-buying office of the Bank of New South Wales, St Bathans, Central Otago
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Former Post Office
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St. Patrick's Church
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Former Vulcan Hotel Billiards Room and Stables
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Blue Lake
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Climate
References
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