Just outside of Queenstown we stopped off at Arrowtown to try our hand at gold panning.  With some luck we could have extended our world trip by another year, or more!  It wasn’t to be!  However, gold flakes are found on a regular basis and just recently a guy found the biggest nugget in over a hundred years, 8.8 grams, worth around 5,000 euro which he sold on ebay for an undisclosed sum.  The location of the find was also undisclosed – the cheek!

Arrowtown sprang up in the 1860s following the discovery of gold in the Arrow River and since became one of the richest rivers in the world.  Mass mining has long since stopped (for a very good reason) but the area still makes plenty of money from from tourists wishing to try their luck.  The town has retained around 60 of its original wooden and stone buildings and makes for a pleasant stopover for lunch or a browse through the shops.  We spent a good few hours panning and had a great laugh debating how we were going to spend our fortune.  The lady at the information centre wet her pants when we said we won’t be coming back for our $20 pan deposit.  Of course we did, with our tails between our legs and she laughed even more.

There is gold there and plenty of it, but not in big enough flakes to be worth any money; you can see the grains or silt glistening in the water.  There are so many metals in the water it’s hard to tell which is gold.  It sounds easy but it’s damn hard work.  For us it’s back to reality!

The drive there was also very beautiful.