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Layers Of Gold & Gabriel’s Gully 150th Celebrations

18-21 March

Otago’s ‘Discovery of Gold’ Celebrations Begin

Dunedin and Lawrence are set to mark the 150th anniversary of Gabriel Read’s discovery of Gold in 1861. Dunedin’s Heritage Festival,’ Layers of Gold’ will be piped in at 12.30pm today in the Octagon and a massed National Anthem will follow, sung by seven choirs.

In Lawrence, Gabriel’s Gully 150th Celebrations will start tonight with a cast of 90 staging The Drama of the Tuapeka. This outdoor production will take place in Gabriel’s Gully.

Dunedin’s Deputy Mayor Chris Staynes will officially open’ Layers of Gold’ tonight at the old BNZ building in Princes Street which has been set up as the Festival’s Exhibition Hall over Otago Anniversary weekend. The 2011 recipient of the Bluestone Award will be announced at the opening.

National MP Michael Woodhouse will officiate tomorrow at the official opening of ‘Gabriel’s Gully 150th Celebrations’. The opening to be held in Gabriel’s Gully will be marked by the arrival of those who have trekked on foot and on horseback from Dunedin to Lawrence taking the same route Gabriel Read took to the Tuapeka.

Over the next four days both Dunedin and Lawrence will host a variety of community events. On Saturday in Dunedin a tall ship with new immigrants aboard will berth at Birch Street Wharf. It will be the beginning of an historical re-enactment that will play itself out as the immigrants, men, women and children make their way on footstep, on cart and on horseback to the centre of their newly adopted city, Dunedin - gateway to the goldfields. This historical spectacle will continues in the Octagon where a makeshift camp of miners’ tents will be jostling with more than a hundred characters of the day.

Geographically events in Dunedin will be held in the city, on the harbour, at Port Chalmers, Waikouaiti, Quarantine Island, Macandrew Bay and other parts of Otago Peninsula.

In Lawrence the centre of activity will be at Gabriel’s Gully with the focal point being the Heritage Centre. Over 40 bays of memorabilia and artefacts relating to the goldfields will be on display and pioneer stories will be told. Swaggers Dance on Saturday night and Sesquicentennial Ball with the NZ Army Band on Sunday night will be held in a large marquee in the Gully. The Chinese Camp just out of Lawrence and Hart’s Black Horse Brewery at Wetherstons will also host events.

Between Dunedin and Lawrence there’s going to be no mistaking where the gold that built New Zealand came from! Otago Anniversary weekend is going to be a riot of colour – Gold!

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