Our Year 13 History class is learnt about the Central Otago Gold Rush and completed a 10 credit research internal on this. We had the opportunity to go down to Arrowtown and experience the history first hand and also gather information to help with understanding of the topic. We were researching areas such as the discrimination of the Chinese during the gold rush, women’s roles, hardships for the miners and the impact of the gold rush on the New Zealand economy.

We left Christchurch on Sunday 21st of March at around 8:30am and started the long journey to Arrowtown. It was a long trip as Miss Turner kept wanting to stop to take photos! When we reached Cromwell we visited the Goldfields mining centre where we saw machines over 100 years old still working. We got the opportunity to go gold panning, we dug up our own gravel and rocks to pan but unfortunately nobody found any gold. There was also a really nice walk up a hill where we got to see the old chinese miners huts and how they lived.

The next day we spent the majority of our time gathering research at the Lakes District Museum as we had access to the archives and other resources that aren't always available to the public. During lunch we got to be a part of Mr Wilson's famous 1Fish 1Scoop youtube video which many of us were excited about. We were taken on a historic walk around the town where we saw things like the old jail, churches, and houses, that were used in the late 1800s. One of the best parts about this trip was the easter egg hunt we did on Monday night, it was a VERY competitive hunt and I'm shocked there were no injuries.

On the final day we did another historic walk where we were shown the World War 1 and 2 memorial and also the Chinese Settlement. The last thing we did in Arrowtown before we left was another round of gold panning, we were definitely more successful this time around as a lot of us found gold even if it was a tiny piece. The drive back seemed a lot shorter than the drive down but at the end it was really nice to get back and see our families.

Thanks so much Mrs Turner, Vicky from the 24/7 youth worker team, and Mr Wilson, for all that you did to ensure we had a great learning experience and a lot of fun.