Australian gold rushes a £1,000 reward as "the first actual producer of alluvial gold for the market". The following goldfields were discovered in New South Wales during July 1851: On 20 July 1851 gold was found near present-day Castlemaine, Victoria (Mt Alexander Goldfields) at Specimen Gully in today's Castlemaine suburb of Barkers Creek. The gold was first found by Christopher Thomas Peters, a shepherd and hut-keeper on the Barker's Creek, in the service of William Barker. When the gold was shown in the men's quarters Peters was ridiculed for finding fool's gold, and the gold was thrown away. Barker did not want his
West Coast Gold Rush largest town on the Coast) and Charlestown, which both almost vanished when the miners moved on. The Coast was the second-richest gold-bearing area of New Zealand after Otago. Eleanor Catton's novel "The Luminaries", which won the 2013 Man Booker Prize, is set in Hokitika during the West Coast Gold Rush. West Coast Gold Rush The West Coast Gold Rush on the West Coast of New Zealand from 1864 to 1867 populated the area, which up till then had been visited by few Europeans. Gold was found near the Taramakau River in 1864 by two Māori, Ihaia Tainui and Haimona Taukau.