Location: Ophir Road, Orange, NSW
Country: Wiradjuri
LGA: Cabonne Shire C ouncil
Region: Central Tablelands
Website: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ophir,_New_South_Wales
Ophir: The site of Australia’s first significant gold discovery. Sydney Morning Herald, June 20, 2008
Ophir (pronounced ‘o-fa’ as in sofa) is an uninhabited recreation reserve with picnic and camping facilities at the confluence of Summer Hill Creek and Lewis Ponds Creek, a tributary of the Macquarie River. It is located in a gorge, 29 km north-east of Orange and 273 km north-west of Sydney. It is here that Australia’s first payable gold was located in April 1851.
The area was known to its original inhabitants, the Wiradjuri people, as ‘Drunong Drung’. This is said to mean ‘many snakes’ as they were apparently attracted to what was a very reliable water source. To the early European settlers it was known as ‘Yorkey’s Corner’ after a reclusive shepherd from Yorkshire who kept his flock here. More >>
History stands corrected: Smith, not Hargraves, first to discover gold in NSW, by Julie Power, Sydney Morning Herald, 3 September 2020 More >>
HOW IS GOLD CREATED?
Back in 1851, those miners could not have imagined that the element gold (Au on the Periodic Table), was cooked in the bellies of stars, as astronomers are now discovering.
The first step towards understanding how gold is created in the universe was the prediction and discovery of neutron stars.
David G. Blair, How to make gold, Australian Journal of Earth Sciences, 15 May 2025, 1–9. https://doi.org/10.1080/08120099.2025.2498613
Abstract: Gold is a rare and special element, intimately connected to the history of civilisation. It is found in meteorites, in the Earth’s crust, in the oceans, in all living things and in the Sun, which is estimated to contain about 1018 tonnes of gold. This paper reviews the physics of gold at a non-technical level. It shows how all aspects of gold, from its colour to its creation, can only be described by Einsteinian physics. Quantum physics, which began with Einstein’s prediction of photons in 1905, combined with his theory of relativity, explains gold’s golden hue. The quantum physics of radioactive decay allows gold isotopes to be used in medicine. The first step towards understanding how gold is created in the universe was the prediction and discovery of neutron stars. Next were observations that proved that gold was not created in supernova explosions where neutron stars were born. These unsuccessful attempts to explain how gold is created led to a new theory that coalescence of pairs of neutron stars, driven by gravitational waves according to Einstein’s 1916 prediction, was the true source of gold. In 2017, this prediction was proved in dramatic observations by gravitational wave detectors, combined with gamma ray observatories and optical telescopes. Events such as this one, but occurring more than 5 billion years ago, are now thought to be the source of gold in the Solar System. More >>
But now scientists are suggesting that gold is also made in other ways. So hard to keep up with current discoveries! More >>
Photo captions
1: Top featured image: Scan of the work by Samuel Sidney, The three colonies of Australia: New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia; their pastures, copper mines, & gold fields, Ingram, Cooke and co., London 1853. Public Domain. Source: Wikimedia Commons. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_three_colonies_of_Australia.djvu.
2: Periodic Table showing origins of the elements. Credits: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, research scientist Jennifer Johnson (Ohio State University). Downloaded from https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/13873/, 3 November 2025.
3: Gullies left by early prospectors at Ophir. Credit: Merrill Findlay, August 2025.
4: Ophir Reserve signage. Credit: Merrill Findlay, August 2025.
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Post created 5 September 2025. Last updated 3 November 2025.
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