Mount Lofty Botanic Gardens

Listing Details

A historical walking trail through the remains of the Jupiter Creek gold diggings. The diggings are located on a historic reserve, which is under the control of the Department of Primary Industries and Resources, which has been zoned for recreation, including fossicking, but entry is subject to the conditions shown on the entrance sign. The site has been exempted from mining operations and placed on the register of State Heritage items. Gold mining greatly contributed to the development of Australia in the second to play a major part in the economic development of the State. Though they stimulated much local excitement and caused significant short term population movements, they could not compete with mineral discoveries in other states, which led to mass exodus from South Australia on several occasions. Even the first major discovery only sixteen kilometres from Adelaide at Chapmans Gully near Echunga, in 1842 could not halt a general exodus to the Bendigo Goldfield in Victoria. The initial rush to Echunga only delayed miners for a short period on their journey to the Victorian goldfields, but intermittent gold mining activity was maintained in subsequent years by a succession of new discoveries and minor rushes. By the turn of the century the Echunga Goldfields had become South Australia's major producer of gold, mainly won from an area extending from the initial find at Chapmans Gully southwards down Long Gully to Jupiter Creek. The Jupiter Creek diggings have an estimated production of between 25,000 and 50,000 ounces of gold. Little remains of the Jupiter Creek diggings. The temporary nature of the store and miner's dwellings, plus the need to recover some of the assets of failed companies, resulted in rapid disappearance of all but some stonework and the diggings themselves. In 1852 the South Australian Government induced most of the men who had left for the Bendigo Goldfields to return by introducing a Bullion Act which offered armed escorts for returning diggers and made their gold legal tender at a higher value than in Victoria. One of the armed constables was Thomas Plane who later settled near Echunga as a farmer, serving also as a butcher and blacksmith to the goldfields and using his spare time for gold prospecting. In July 1868, Thomas Plane and Henry Saunders found payable alluvial gold a few kilometres from Chapmans Gully at Jupiter Creek and subsequently received rewards from the Government.

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