Country Article / Postcards
Gold Rush, 1860
Date: 12/19/2006
The resident prospector welcomes you to Arrowtown.
International Living Postcards-- your daily escape
Wednesday, Dec. 20, 2006
Arrowtown, New Zealand
English and Scottish settlers discovered gold in modest amounts in the Central Otago Lake District during the 1850s, but were more interested in finding land suitable for grazing. Queenstown didn’t become a boom-town until 1860.
A prospector, William Fox, followed the Kawarau River and stopped at Queenstown Station for provisions, planning to prospect the Arrow River for alluvial gold. Another party of miners joined him, and though they tried to hide their find of 40 pounds of gold, their secret leaked within two weeks. Miners abandoned their own claims to “Hunt the Fox.” Records recount the collection of 110 pounds of gold, by one party, in a little over a month.
A canvas shanty-town grew on the Arrow’s banks; by year’s end more than 3,000 men were in the area. Miners arrived on stagecoaches equipped with picks, pans, and shovels, while four steamers sailed Lake Wakatipu and the “Golden Cobweb.”
Twenty minutes from Queenstown, Arrowtown has the feel of a mining town. As I walked past the historic stone buildings that line the streets, I visualize swaggering miners. T-shirts, opals, and charms filled with gold dust are for sale at the Lakes District Museum, but you can also learn about the old days. Established in 1948, the museum represents Arrowtown and the New Zealand Southern Lakes District.
On the outskirts of town, I visit stone houses and mud-brick huts; remains of the Chinese Settlement built near Bush Creek in 1868. After Caucasian miners left for gold fields in Westland in 1865, Chinese from the Victorian gold fields in Australia came to the Otago and worked small abandoned claims.
The prospectors desperately needed supplies and transport was difficult; a whaleboat was used to bring in provisions. Other vessels followed, then small steamers-- The Nugget was the first, followed by a paddle steamer, Wakatipu. By 1878, locomotives brought prospectors to some of the fields. Today, the last surviving steamship, the T.S.S. Earnshaw, carries travelers around Lake Wakatipu.
Sixteen gold fossicking areas have been set aside in the South Island where gold can be panned without a permit. Take the 20-minute ride from Queenstown to Arrowtown; check out the miner’s monument about 400 meters up the Arrow River from the Junction of Bush Creek. Here, in William Fox’s territory, you can rent a pan, select gravel, fill with water, shake the pan…and maybe find enough pay-dirt to purchase an ice-cream.
Elise Warner
For International Living
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