Otago Gold Rush Otago Gold Rush The Otago Gold Rush (often called the Central Otago Gold Rush) was a gold rush that occurred during the 1860s in Central Otago, New Zealand. This was the country's biggest gold strike, and led to a rapid influx of foreign miners to the area - many of them veterans of other hunts for the precious metal in California and Victoria, Australia. The rush started at Gabriel's Gully but spread throughout much of Central Otago, leading to the rapid expansion and commercialisation of the new colonial settlement of Dunedin, which quickly grew to be New Zealand's largest city.
Klondike Gold Rush people tried to reach the Klondike goldfields, of whom only around 30,000 to 40,000 eventually did. It formed the height of the Klondike gold rush from the summer of 1897 until the summer of 1898. It began on July 15, 1897, in San Francisco and was spurred further two days later in Seattle, when the first of the early prospectors returned from the Klondike, bringing with them large amounts of gold on the ships "Excelsior" and "Portland". The press reported that a total of $1,139,000 (equivalent to $1,000 million at 2010 prices) had been brought in by these ships, although