The bucket ladder from the Bendigo Gold Light Company's dredge had been resting in the Lions picnic reserve on the banks of the Clutha River, and then beside Lake Dunstan, between Cromwell and Bendigo, for almost 80 years.
A six-hour operation involving several special vehicles relocated the ladder a few kilometres up the road to Bendigo, where it now rests overlooking the area where its dredge once worked.
It will require a few repairs for safety purposes before it will be open to the public, but Otago Goldfields Heritage Trust secretary Terry Davis said that should only take about a week.
The work will include a set of steps specially built by the Department of Conservation (Doc) so people can climb on to the ladder and walk along it.
"Problems were immediately apparent.
"The Mines Department found that the test bores had been miscalculated and their research proved that the claim, far from being virgin ground, had been mined several times over the years," Mr Carpenter said.
In addition, the dredge cost much more than estimated to shift from where it previously operated in Waikaka, the tailings elevator did not work properly, the bucket ladder could not get down deep enough and the company could not get enough water in its pond.
It was decommissioned after about a year of operations and with almost no gold found.
Cromwell Lions took possession of the bucket ladder and used it as a footbridge to access an island in the Clutha River near the Lions picnic reserve.
After the development of the Clyde dam and flooding of the area, it became redundant as a bridge.
Tying in with the area's 150th anniversary of the discovery of gold, the Otago Goldfields Heritage Trust initiated the ladder's relocation.
Trust president Martin Anderson said it was a long, hard road to see the idea come to fruition but the trust had had great support from Doc and Fulton Hogan.
It was because of the original moving operation in 1935 that Fulton Hogan came into being - after Julius Fulton and Robert Hogan were awarded the initial contract and the payment from it, they were able to buy equipment and form the Dunedin-based company.
