Ross Historical Cemetery and Goldfields Gold mining walk track

The Ross Goldfields Information & Heritage Centre is located at the southern end of Aylmer Street and is the one-stop spot for gold mining history and regional information.
You can hire or buy a gold pan and head up to the DOC fossicking area at Jones Creek, where gold was first discovered in 1865, and the odd flecks are still uncovered today.
Or, if time is short or the weather wet, you can pan undercover at the centre where your fortune could be uncovered.
Ross was established in the 1860s, during the West Coast Gold Rush, where it became an important centre for miners. At its largest, the town had around 4,000 inhabitants, but the population declined after local goldfields were depleted in the early 1870s.
Quartz was occasionally mined on Mount Greenland, a nearby ridge, but little more gold was found until two miners discovered a large 3.1-kilogram nugget in 1909, which was later named the “Honourable Roddy Nugget”, after Roderick McKenzie, the Minister for Mines at the time.
A branch line railway known as the Ross Branch was extended from Ruatapu to Ross on 1 April 1909, serving as the southern terminus of the line owned by the New Zealand Railways Department. However, a lengthy privately owned bush tramway ran south from the railway station to serve logging interests near Lake Ianthe and a railway extension from Ross through the Haast Pass to connect with the Otago Central Railway was proposed in the early 20th century.
From the 1940s until 9 October 1962, a Vulcan railcar service operated directly from Christchurch to Ross twice a day. A lack of traffic and expensive maintenance costs meant the line was closed beyond Hokitika on 24 November 1980. Much of the old track bed between Ruatapu and Hokitika can be driven as it serves as an access road for local farmers, and a disused truss bridge still stands north of Ross.
THE 19TH CENTURY
In 1865 the European settlers arrived and set up diggings in Jones Creek. In a letter to the Provincial Secretary, dated August 21 in 1965, Commissioner Sale wrote of ‘the new field lately opened on a branch of the Totara called the Pokorua’. The same letter refers to the future town of Ross as ‘the Township on the Pokorua’, which then became Georgetown for a short time but was later on to become Rosstown, which was later shortened to ‘Ross’ around 1866.
Gold was first discovered in the Totara River in 1864 and in Ross in 1865, which was then known as the Totara District. In just one month, the population of Ross went from nil to over 4000 miners. By January 1866, the shallow creek deposits of gold were dwindling and the Ross diggers found there were further gold bearing layers dep underground. The work was too much for individual miners, so companies were formed to sink shafts and to install pumping machinery to deal with water seepage. Mining continued right to the end of the 19th century in varying degrees.
The Streets of Ross: One only needs to take a stroll around the township, to see the street names, which reflect some of the numerous nationalities of the formative settler of Ross.

[@kimbrandon7820]

I puff uphill too, lol. Nice positive comments about DOC, great walk and history thanks love all the explores you doing.

[@TheForsakenExplorerNz]

I have allot more respect for Doc after i did a history walk with them up Denniston last year, Thank you for watching and commenting 😎👍

[@daphnebinnie7073]

I went to ross cemetery ovee twenty years ago it was very steep i remember looking down ito one of those shafts i think that was on the road just along from the cemetery i like old cemeteries

[@007sweetkitten]

Awesome love this!

[@TheForsakenExplorerNz]

Awesome glad you enjoyed this, Thank you for watching and commenting 😎👍

[@ExploringwithMark]

lol Madprops is like me stuff it I'm walking in the water.

[@desubtilizer]

23:17 Time for an EVP session?

[@TheForsakenExplorerNz]

Could be an idea but being a public building could be weird some family or kid might walk in and get the shits lol 😂😂

[@desubtilizer]

0:57 Insert Pantera here 😊

[@TheForsakenExplorerNz]

So wanted to buy copyright etc

[@traceypeck9236]

Lmfwao try not to scratch ur bits while ur filming their guys 😅

[@TheForsakenExplorerNz]

Hahaha yes wasn't me luckily 😂