The Tuapeka River is located in

Otago Otago (, ; mi, Ōtākou ) is a region of New Zealand located in the southern half of the South Island administered by the Otago Regional Council. It has an area of approximately , making it the country's second largest local government reg ...

in the

South Island The South Island, also officially named , is the larger of the two major islands of New Zealand in surface area, the other being the smaller but more populous North Island. It is bordered to the north by Cook Strait, to the west by the Tasman ...

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

. It is a tributary of the

Clutha River The Clutha River (, officially gazetted as Clutha River / ) is the second longest river in New Zealand and the longest in the South Island. It flows south-southeast through Central and South Otago from Lake Wānaka in the Southern Alps to the P ...

, which it joins at Tuapeka Mouth between

Roxburgh Roxburgh () is a civil parish and formerly a royal burgh, in the historic county of Roxburghshire in the Scottish Borders, Scotland. It was an important trading burgh in High Medieval to early modern Scotland. In the Middle Ages it had at leas ...

and Balclutha. The Tuapeka's main claim to fame is as the centre of the

Central Otago Gold Rush The Otago Gold Rush (often called the Central Otago Gold Rush) was a gold rush that occurred during the 1860s in Central Otago, New Zealand. This was the country's biggest gold strike, and led to a rapid influx of foreign miners to the area – ...

of the 1860s. The first major discovery of gold in Otago was at

Gabriel's Gully Gabriel's Gully is a locality in Otago, New Zealand, three kilometres from Lawrence township and close to the Tuapeka River. It was the site of New Zealand's first major gold rush. The discovery of gold at Gabriel's Gully by Gabriel Read on ...

, close to the Tuapeka, in 1861. An earlier wooden crib dam was built further upstream in 1907. This concrete dam was begun in 1914. Water from the dam was conveyed on a water race to the turbine and sluicing area.

References

Rivers of Otago Otago Gold Rush Rivers of New Zealand Tributaries of the Clutha River {{Otago-river-stub