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On a late autumn evening in 1861, when the infant village of Dunedin was at its evening meal and the dark already falling, a lone Australian prospector stopped to try his luck at a small creek 70km away as the crow flies.

The man was Gabriel Read. The place, a few kilometres from modern Lawrence. The date, the 20th (some say the 23rd) of May. Shovelling away more than half a metre of gravel and reaching the slate bed of the creek, Read found, in his famous phrase, "gold shining like the stars of Orion on a dark, frosty night". By the time he had panned out the first shovelsful and with darkness already upon him, he had to stumble back to his tent to strike a light and see the rich residue of gold gleaming in the dish.

The rush had a slow start...

After several more days of prospecting, Read was convinced that he had discovered a major goldfield. He reported his find to the authorities who in turn passed the news on to the Otago Witness. It didn't have the effect you might expect. There'd already been half a dozen supposed goldfields discovered, and none had come to anything. Besides, the Presbyterian Scots who made up the bulk of the small settlement were highly suspicious of anything that smacked of easy money. Back in 1851, the Witness had bluntly warned its readers, "Flour is more necessary than gold and may be more profitable".

So, with this initial scepticism, no more than 150 men were at work on the diggings in the first month. But spectacular returns had their effect and by August 'gold fever' had taken hold. News spread, diggers began to pour over from Australia, and the village of Dunedin suddenly found itself in the forefront of an international goldrush. On one single day, 65 vessels were counted at anchor in the Otago Harbour. People awoke to see empty hillsides suddenly covered with white tents.

Followed by a population explosion

The Tuapeka wilderness was soon supporting 11,500 diggers. Dunedin, as port of entry, doubled to 5,850 in 6 months, trebled again within 3 years, and by 1870 was unchallenged as New Zealand's largest and richest city. Scots leaders who bemoaned the loss of the settlement's 'old identity' were ridiculed in the clever satirical songs of Charles Thatcher.

While the growing city of Dunedin certainly suffered from absurdly soaring land values, disastrous sanitation problems and burgeoning crime, it also enjoyed unimagined benefits from its sudden and unexpected wealth: the finest architecture in New Zealand, the first daily newspaper, and even the celebrated (and notorious) Vauxhall pleasure gardens.