{{Short description|Creek in New Zealand; site of first payable gold discovery in South Island}} {{Use New Zealand English|date=May 2025}} {{Use dmy dates|date=May 2025}} {{Infobox river | name = Appos Creek | image = Appoo's Creek 12.jpg | image_size = | image_caption = Appos Creek as seen from Devil's Boots Road | map = {{Maplink|frame=yes|type=line|plain=yes|zoom=12|frame-align=center|frame-width=270|frame-height=270|stroke-color=#0000ff|stroke-width=2}} | map_size = | map_caption = Route of Appos Creek | map_alt =
| source1_location = Appos Flat | source1_coordinates = {{coord|-40.7281|172.6643|format=dms|display=inline,title}} | source1_elevation = 120 m | mouth_location = [[Aorere River]] | mouth_elevation = 19 m | mouth_coordinates = {{coord|-40.7374|172.6318|format=dms|display=inline}} | subdivision_type1 = Country | subdivision_name1 = New Zealand | length = | discharge1_avg = | basin_size = | progression = '''Appos Creek''' → [[Aorere River]] → [[Golden Bay / Mohua]] → [[Tasman Sea]] | tributaries_left = | tributaries_right = | waterfalls = | bridges = Devil's Boots Road }} '''Appos Creek''' is a small waterway in the hills behind the [[Golden Bay / Mohua]] township of [[Parapara, Tasman|Parapara]] in New Zealand. The creek is notable as the site of the first gold discovery—in 1856—in the [[South Island]], and this started the [[Golden Bay gold rush]]. This gold rush, which lasted for three years, triggered a name change of the area, from Massacre Bay to Golden Bay.
==Location== Appos Creek is a waterway in the hills behind Parapara.<ref>{{LINZ |id=15562 |name=Appos Creek |access-date=9 May 2025}}</ref><ref name="topomap">{{cite web |title=Appos Creek, Tasman |url= https://www.topomap.co.nz/NZTopoMap/nz44536/Appos-Creek/Tasman |publisher=NZ Topo Map |access-date=9 May 2025}}</ref> The creek begins at Appos Flat.<ref>{{LINZ |id=15563 |name=Appos Flat |access-date=9 May 2025}}</ref> Appos Creek discharges into the [[Aorere River]].<ref name="topomap" />
There is legal access—mostly via [[Paper street|paper roads]]—from Plain Road: a corridor accesses Appos Flat, then descends along Appos Creek to its confluence with the creek coming out of [[Lightband Gully]], with the paper road then following up the gully and beyond it along an unnamed tributary.<ref>{{cite web |title=Untitled |url= https://maps.herengaanuku.govt.nz/Viewer/?map=9cd99517a0db4d18a894c3839df4d3a3 |publisher=[[Herenga ā Nuku Aotearoa, the Outdoor Access Commission]] |access-date=9 May 2025}}</ref>
==Naming== According to ''Place Names of New Zealand'', the creek was named after [[Appo Hocton]] from [[Nelson, New Zealand|Nelson]],<ref name="Place Names">{{cite book |last=Reed |first=A. W. |title=Place Names of New Zealand |year=2010 |publisher=Raupo |location=Rosedale, North Shore |isbn=9780143204107 |page=26 |editor=Peter Dowling }}</ref> but Hocton's entry published in the ''[[Dictionary of New Zealand Biography]]'' is silent on him having ever been involved in gold mining.<ref name="DNZB Hocton">{{DNZB|last=Malone |first=C. B. |id=1h31 |title=Appo Hocton |accessdate=9 May 2025}}</ref> Local writer [[Enga Washbourn]] published a family history in 1970 titled ''Courage and Camp Ovens'', with her great-grandfather William Washbourn intimately involved in the resulting gold rush. In the book, she talks of Appoo's Creek and Appoo's Flat being named after a "Cingalese{{efn|Cingalese is an archaic spelling of [[Sinhalese people|Sinhalese]], i.e. a person from Sri Lanka; Hocton, on the other hand, was Chinese.<ref name="DNZB Hocton" />}} digger whose name appears on a passenger list in February 1857".<ref>{{cite book | last=Washbourn |first=Enga |author-link=Enga Washbourn |date=1970 |title=Courage and Camp Ovens: Five generations at Golden Bay |publisher=Reed Publishing |isbn=0-589-00429-8 |pages=37–44}}</ref> The passenger list she refers to was published in ''[[The Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle]]'' on 25 February 1857, reporting that Appoo was returning from Massacre Bay.{{efn|Massacre Bay was an early name of the area; it was renamed to Golden Bay as a consequence of the gold rush.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Walrond |first1=Carl |title=Nelson Places – Eastern Golden Bay |url= https://teara.govt.nz/en/nelson-places/page-9 |website=Te Ara |access-date=9 May 2025 |date=22 April 2015}}</ref>}}<ref>{{cite news |title=Shipping intelligence |url= https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/NENZC18570225.2.3 |access-date=9 May 2025 |work=[[The Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle]] |volume=XV |issue=95 |date=25 February 1857 |page=2}}</ref> Jacobus Appoo was a hairdresser in Nelson.<ref>{{cite news |title=List of persons |url= https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/NENZC18570214.2.11.1 |access-date=9 May 2025 |work=[[The Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle]] |volume=XV |issue=95 |date=14 February 1857 |page=4}}</ref> Nelson geologist and historian Mike Johnston, in his scholarly work on the gold rush titled ''Aorere Gold'', concurs with Washbourn that Jacobus Appoo is the person after whom the creek and flat are named.<ref>{{cite book |first=Mike |last=Johnston |date=2023 |title=Aorere Gold |page=?}}</ref>
==History== [[File:Appoo's Creek 14.jpg|thumb|left|Appos Creek where it flows into the [[Aorere River]]]] John Ellis and John James found gold in 1856 at the point where Lightband Gully's creek flows into Appos Creek.<ref name="NZ Geographic">{{cite journal |last1=Hindmarsch |first1=Gerard |title=Kahurangi; Our newest National Park |journal=New Zealand Geographic |date=Jul–Sep 1995 |issue=27 |url= https://www.nzgeo.com/stories/kahurangi-our-newest-national-park/}}</ref> [[William Lightband]] was told about the find by Ellis and James.<ref name="gold bonus">{{cite news |title=The gold bonus |url= https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/NENZC18580210.2.10 |access-date=25 January 2025 |work=[[The Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle]] |volume=XVII |date=10 February 1858 |page=3}}</ref> From 1851 to 1853, Lightband Jr. had been on Australian gold fields.<ref name="NZETC Westland">{{cite book |title=The Cyclopedia of New Zealand : Nelson, Marlborough & Westland Provincial Districts |year=1906 |url= https://ndhadeliver.natlib.govt.nz/webarchive/20210104000423/http://nzetc.victoria.ac.nz/tm/scholarly/tei-Cyc05Cycl-t1-body1-d1-d2-d5.html#Cyc05Cycl-fig-Cyc05Cycl130a |publisher=[[The Cyclopedia of New Zealand]] |location=Christchurch |chapter=Brightwater}}</ref> Lightband Jr. and William Hough did some further prospecting at the original claim, and after a week they moved further up Lightband Gully. By February 1857, they found a location that gave good returns.<ref name="gold bonus" />
The wider area proved to hold gold, and over the following three years, some 2000 miners came to the Aorere gold field. Finding gold triggered the change of the area's name: in 1642, [[Abel Tasman]] had called the area Murderers ("Moordenaers") Bay, which later became Massacre Bay, but this became Golden Bay in the 1850s.<ref name="The Prow">{{cite web |last1=Stephens |first1=Joy |title=Aorere gold |url= https://www.theprow.org.nz/enterprise/aorere-gold/ |publisher=The Prow |access-date=25 January 2025 |date=12 October 2021}}</ref>
==Footnotes== {{notelist}}
==References== {{Reflist}} {{Tasman District}}
[[Category:History of the Tasman District]] [[Category:1856 in New Zealand]] [[Category:Aorere gold rush]] [[Category:Rivers of New Zealand]] [[Category:Landforms of the Tasman District]]