Come for an afternoon or a weekend. Have a picnic beneath the willows at Ophir junction just metres from FitzRoy Bar, scene of an essential moment in Australian history. Pitch your tent on "The Flat" where the diggers had their canvass and bark shelters and baked their damper. Spend an afternoon exploring the old mine workings along Lewis Ponds Creek where there is a feeling of time suspended. Don’t be surprised though if you should encounter a digger, for Ophir is still an active gold prospecting and mining area.

Use this guide to help you explore Ophir and its history. Remember though, Ophir is not a museum with display cases or a history theme park with paved walks. Ophir is very much as the diggers and time left it. Care should he taken around open shafts.

The junction of Louis Ponds and Summer Hill Creek has long attracted visitors. Local Wiradjuri people knew it to be a source of water in driest of times. The water also attracted snakes, hence their naming this place Drunong Drung. "Many Snakes".

This reliable waterhole was appreciated by the early settlers as well. One shepherd in particular, a reclusive Yorkshireman, kept his flock at what was soon named "Yorkey’s Corner". Long before 1851. Yorkey is thought to have found gold here. In 1849. WT Smith, a Sydney jeweller, tried to draw official attention to the gold he too found, but officialdom was not yet interested in gold.

In 1851 the situation changed. The notion of a Californian-style gold rush now seemed attractive to an impoverished government and a reward was offered for the first person to discover a payable gold field. On February 12, a recently returned Californian digger. Edward Hargraves found traces of gold in Radigan’s Gully off Lewis Ponds Creek, 4 km upstream from the junction. Hargraves also prospected at the junction itself but failed to find any gold.

It was as associate of Hargraves, William Tom Jr, who, on April 7, made the important find at Ophir. On the rock bar below the junction, be found a heart-shaped nugget. 1/2 oz in weight. Encouraged by this lucky find. Tom and his friend john Lister spent the next 3 days cradling more gold from the creekbed near the site of the nugget. Further down the creek, Lister found by chance a 2-oz nugget that had been snared in the roots of a creek bank tree. In all 4 oz of gold were recovered, proof of that there was a payable gold field at Summer Hill Creek.

"And they came to Ophir and fetched from thence gold."

William Tom Sr. known as Parson Tom suggested the name of Ophire, a Biblical reference to King Solomon's gold. Naming of the bar after Governor FirzRoy was suggested by Hargraves, who took the gold and the news of the discovery to Sydney. Hargraves also took the public credit and the official reward for the discovery.

By early May the Ophir gold rush was underway. Other gold fields would soon overshadow Ophir in size and richness but to Ophir belongs the honour of being the first field. It is also where those very Australian words, digger and diggings were first used.

The rush of 1851 was centred an Ophir Junction with miners working up Lewis Ponds Creek and dawn Summer Hill Creek, digging and cradling along the creeks and gullies. Visitors to the field write of the constant din of the cradles by day (except on Sundays) and the glow of campfires through the hills at night. A small settlement developed at the Junction with hotels, stores, and blacksmiths and, because of the liquor laws, many illegal sly grog shops. There was even a visiting black and white minstrel show. A second settlement, Newtown sprang up at Tinkers Point.

The exact number of diggers at Ophir is not known. Observers of the day suggest that as its height in mid-1851 there may have been close to 2000 diggers on the Ophir field at any given time. However, the highest number recorded for the issue of monthly miner’s licences was only 446, in July 1851. Ophir has the dubious honour of being the fist field to experience both the licence system and a system of licence evasion. As the police worked their way along the valley checking licences, a raven’s cry would warn unlicensed diggers to pickup their cradles and scatter.

Although the amount of gold taken out of Ophir is not known, we do know that much of the alluvial gold found was as nuggets rather than as dust. For the diggers, this means luck played an important part in prospecting. A digger with a frying pan as his gold pan could do better then properly equipped neighbours. While some did make lucky finds, fer most the experience was hard work for no more pay than could be earned by staying at home. As well, the winter of 1851 was especially cold and wet; creekbed claims flooded. Home soon beckoned for many. Others were attracted to the Teron where gold was more easily won. In December 1851, only 242 licences were issued; by August 1852, the number of licences was down to 84. Ophir’s Rush was over.

The field was never completely abandoned, however. A handful of diggers continued to work its creekbeds and gullies, joined in the Mid-1850's by Chinese diggers who successfully remarked earlier diggings. Their camp was sited as the gate below Murray’s Hill. Their earthen water races can still be found through Ophir’s hills.

In 1866, quartz reef mining phase began in the history of Ophir with the discovery of the Belmore Reef. Over the next couple of decades, numerous shafts and cuttings sought the reefs in the hills south of the Junction. Reefs found were often rich in gold, bet they were always short in length and soon lost. Towards the end of the century, attention shifted to mining on Doctor’s Hill, a difficult site because of underground flooding. A small settlement, of which hardly a trace remains, developed nearby. Mining still takes place on, or rather beneath, this hill. Uren’s Tunnel has been worked by the Uren's family for almost a century.

There is gold yet to be found at Ophir. If you need proof, just ask locals about the 5.22 kg Father’s Day Nugget found on September 2,1979. Nevertheless, as the 1851 diggers might say, it’s still a matter of luck.