NERRIGUNDAH

The goldfields at Nerrigundah (19km west of Bodalla) are perhaps lesser-known than other Australian goldfields. But a substantial amount of gold was recovered there … and this was considered to be “of very superior description, bright, coarse, nuggetty” and “the purest gold in the colony.”

There is little at Nerrigundah today to remind us that this was once a thriving mining area – apart from an impressive obelisk recording (perhaps inevitably, as in any gold mining community!) a significant encounter with bushrangers.

Gold was officially discovered in Nerrigundah on 23rd December 1860 by George Cook, Joseph Goodenough and William Crouch. The discovery was registered in Braidwood nine days later.

Within two months there were 200 to 300 hopeful miners on the ground – in a relatively small area of just 3 square miles extending up Gulph Creek (a tributary of the Tuross River). Many were to be well rewarded … and a report to the NSW Surveyor-General in mid-March 1861 suggested there will be room for 2,000 diggers at least and in the course of two or three months I have no doubt that nearly that number will be there. It appears to be an extraordinarily rich auriferous field.

Reaching the Nerrigundah goldfield was not particularly easy, an 1861 report on the area observing the country is so mountainous and broken that everything has to be taken in by packhorse. It is quite impossible to get a dray near the place.

But enough hopefuls were willing to endure the journey, making it worthwhile for the Illawarra & South Coast Steam Navigation Company to advertise, in 1863, a ‘Steam to the Tuross River and Gulph Diggings’ service. The steamer Kembla first took passengers to Batemans Bay where they transferred to the Mynora, a shallower draught steamer, that delivered them to Tuross.

Eventually the goldfields extended to cover an area of 10 square miles, with a population that may have topped 7,000.

In 1866, when the population had dwindled to around 1,200, 150 rough buildings had been erected in the town, including numerous shops, a school, an independent courthouse, an independent police station and 7 hotels!

But not everybody was welcome. This discovery of gold and the initial settlement at Nerrigundah came soon after the Lambing Flat (Young) riots of November 1860 to September 1861, and at least one party of Chinese prospectors was met at Sandy Level on the outskirts of Nerrigundah by the European diggers and they were given a severe beating with sticks and whips.

The Chinese, however, filtered into the area and settled north of the town in an area known as Fern Flat. Soon there were about 400 Chinese miners in the area, and one of the more substantial buildings in the township was Kee Chong’s Chinese General Store. A Department of Mines report in 1882 (15 or 20 years after much of the alluvial gold in the area had been recovered, and the gold escort from the town having been withdrawn as early as June 1865) noting the Europeans still continue to fossick into the old alluvial workings. The Chinese (being more co-operative) get the largest share of gold … there appears to be a very good field here for the energetic prospector, and also for the introduction of machinery to re-work the alluvial ground.

That “machinery to re-work the alluvial ground” came in 1903 in the form of the steam-driven Tuross River Bucket Dredge which worked an area for half a mile upstream from the junction of Gulph Creek and the Tuross River until 1916 – shifting, for example, an incredible 260,000 cubic yards of material in 1906 alone. And then further dredging of the creek occurred in the 1920s and again in 1943–44.

Attention then turned from recovering the alluvial gold deposits near the surface of the ground to seeking gold from reefs further underground. A number of substantial shafts were sunk at locations in and around Nerrigundah (including the Mount Pleasant mine which dropped to a depth of 350 feet, 450 feet or 500 feet – depending on which of the locals were to be believed – and the Utopia Mine that dropped to a depth of at least 260 feet). Multi-head gold stampers were imported to crush the ore, and some ore was transported by packhorse to the Tinpot Battery and later by truck to the Utopia Battery which was sited 3 miles away on the banks of the Tuross River.

Results were mixed as most reefs turned out to be quite short in length. However, a 1900 Department of Mines Report concluded several new reefs have been discovered, and crushings have given very satisfactory results with one new mine Utting and Party having a trial crushing of 23 tons, which yielded(an amazingly productive) 91 oz of gold._ Other challenges, though, were also noted: the principal mine is The Bumbo, but work was suspended for seven months of the year owing to the influx of water.

An attempt was even made in 1936 to recover gold from an open-cut mine on the banks of Bulimba Creek. This, however, proved to be unsuccessful and the open cut mine was abandoned in 1937.

The last remaining store in Nerrigundah closed in 1977.