Hokitika is a small town near Greymouth on the West Coast of the South Island. Today, it celebrated 150 years since the town began. On December 20th 1864, a small ship entered the river and a number of gold miners got off. They had heard the news that someone had found gold in Greeenstone Creek near Hokitika. The West Coast gold rush began from that day. In the first year, the town grew quickly. There were stores, hotels, a Post Office, law court and a police camp. By Christmas 1865, there were 72 hotels in Hokitika. Most of the men in the jail were arrested for drunkenness.
In the first two years, more than 37,000 people arrived to search for gold. The gold was alluvial – found in the rivers and in the beach sand. Gold miners used a gold pan or sometimes a wooden sluice box with matting on the bottom to catch the small pieces of gold dust. It was hard work and most people did not get rich.
The New Zealand gold rush started in 1861 in Central Otago. If you have visited Queenstown or Arrowtown, you will know about that gold rush. New Zealand had gold in a few others places like Coromandel and Golden Bay. Today, there are two opencast mines but they are expensive to operate so the price of gold needs to be high. The owners have to leave the land in very good condition when mining is finished.
Listen to October 16th 2013 to hear about a prize-winning book set in 1866 in Hokitika.
Vocabulary
• alluvial gold – comes from hard rock washed down rivers and glaciers
• sluice – washed by water
• matting – like a mat, some rough material to catch the gold dust
• opencast – not underground; a big open pit in the ground where trucks drive around