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One Man’s Goldfield: the story of the Horseshoe Bend Diggings, William Rigney and Somebody’s Darling

Figure 1 Horseshoe Bend from Billygoat Hill ~ 1900

Photo from Mrs McElwain.

Impressions of goldfield life

The 1911 Gabriel’s Gully Jubilee was attended by many miners who had been at the
Gully in the 1860’s. The Jubilee Book records their reminiscences of the times. The
following statements, derived from that source, provide perhaps the closest available
impression of what life might have been like at the nearby Horseshoe Bend Diggings.

Miners crossed the Tasman in their thousands in the early 1860's, moving from the
Australian goldfields to the new fields of Otago. The ships to New Zealand were very
crowded and only the lucky few managed to get a berth. Food for the trip is best
described as basic, miners recorded a staple diet of potatoes, salt beef and a bottle of
gin each morning. The passage from Melbourne to Port Chalmers took around
fourteen days. From Port Chalmers to Dunedin the miners had a choice of a day’s
walk or a ten shilling ferry ride.

From Dunedin to Gabriel’s Gully was a four-day trip with a choice of two routes. The
Tokomoriro route consisted of two days from Dunedin to Woolshed Creek (Glenore) a
day from Woolshed Creek to Waitahuna and Gabriel's on the fourth day. The
alternative route was via the Silverstream and Maungatua.

There was only a limited form of law and order in the goldfields districts, and the
routes to the fields. The Maungatua route which many followed to the goldfields was
not a happy route for some of those returning from the fields. This was the route on

© Jeff Robertson 9