Kyeburn

Kyeburn

Kyeburn is a small settlement in Otago, in the South Island of New Zealand. It lies on the Maniototo, a wide, high plain stretching from the end of the Strath-Taieri valley.

Kyeburn stands at the junction of State Highways 85 ("The Pigroot") and 87, some 15 kilometres (9.3 mi) east of Ranfurly, on the Kyeburn Stream, a minor tributary of the Taieri River.^[1] The stream's name, from which the settlement gets its name, is one of those within "Thomson's Barnyard", an area dotted with northern English farmyard animal names, all given by early Otago surveyor John Turnbull Thomson. The area was, in its early years of settlement, called Cows Creek. ("kye" is a Northumbrian term for cows).^[2]

The area around Kyeburn was a busy mining location during the latter part of the Otago gold rush, with the mining settlement of Kyeburn Diggings (sometimes called Upper Kyeburn) located some 10 kilometres to the north of Kyeburn itself.^[1]