Hidden Treasure and the Mountain Maid Gold Mine
Walk a rainforest track into a mine shaft in a valley that held 1,100 people and then handed itself back to the forest.
Visit tara hill
Highlights
- Inside the mine shaft, on a guided ranger walk.
- A stamper battery and gold carts, standing in rainforest.
- Panning for gold in the creek where it was found.
- Quolls, phascogales and microbats, on the twilight tour.
- Basin Loop track, 7 km, free, no booking.
Where: Copeland Tops State Conservation Area, Old Copeland Road, Copeland NSW 2422.
The Mine: *Guided tours only, Wednesday and Saturday from 10 am
*Note: Tours are temporarily suspended from June 1 to December 1, 2026, due to site upgrades.
Mine Tour Cost: $20 for adults, $14 for children. Bookings essential on 1300 072 757.
Also here: Barbecues and tables at Hidden Treasure picnic area.
From Tara Hill: About 1 hour 30 minutes via Dungog and Gloucester.
Other Notes: No drinking water and no mobile reception. Pets are not permitted in NPWS reserves.
What is the Mountain Maid gold mine?
Mountain Maid gold mine is a preserved 19th-century gold mine in Copeland Tops State Conservation Area near Gloucester, and one of the longest-operating gold mines in New South Wales. NPWS runs guided walking tours from the Hidden Treasure picnic area car park, taking visitors past historic machinery, into the mine shaft, and along Copeland Creek to pan for gold.
The mine and Hidden Treasure track are open on tours only, and bookings are essential. Everything below assumes you have made one.
The town that went back to forest
In 1876, a man named Saxby found gold in Back Creek, now Copeland Creek. Within a few years, the district held around 1,100 people, with three pubs and four stores serving roughly 800 miners. The Mountain Maid reef was the richest of them. The Hidden Treasure reef, found the following year, gave up 269 kilograms of gold.
Then the gold thinned, the miners left, and the rainforest closed over the top. What you walk through now is a forest with a goldfield inside it: red cedar, grey myrtle and giant stinging trees, and among them a stamper battery, a gold separator and carts going quietly green.
This was a working goldfield and open shafts remain off the tracks. That is the one rule here: Stay on the marked paths, all of you, all day.
The forest that grew back over it
The better story is what moved in afterwards. Copeland Tops now holds spotted-tailed quolls and brush-tailed phascogales, several kinds of microbat, and birds worth the walk on their own: glossy black-cockatoos working the casuarinas, wompoo fruit-doves calling from the canopy, and the rare stuttering frog somewhere in the creek. Koalas sit in the eucalypts above the picnic tables.
Most of that is nocturnal, which is the argument for the twilight tour over the morning one. The same track gives you a different park depending on the hour you walk it.
- Take binoculars and go quiet for ten minutes somewhere on the loop. This is dry rainforest, so the canopy is lower and closer than in the wet forest up on the Tops, and you see more from standing still than from walking further.
Ways in
Mountain Maid heritage tour
Wed and Sat, 10am – $20 adult, $14 child
2 hrs, 4 km walk
Copeland Tops twilight tour
First Friday monthly – $20 adult, $14 child
2 hrs, bring a torch
Junior ranger tour
School holidays – $18 child, adults free
2 hrs
Basin Loop track
Any day, no booking – Free
3.5 to 4.5 hrs
Book the twilight tour if your group includes curious teenagers. One thing to confirm before you drive: NPWS suspended tours for the rest of 2026 for site upgrades.
Questions before you go
Can you visit the gold mine without a tour?
No. Mountain Maid gold mine and Hidden Treasure track are accessible only on a guided NPWS tour, and bookings are essential. Basin Loop track and the picnic area are open daily at no cost, so the trip still works without a booking, but the mine itself stays closed to unaccompanied visitors.
Is the gold mine tour suitable for children?
The tours are graded medium and suit children from five years up, with steep staircase sections across a four kilometre walk. Panning for gold and the machinery hold attention well. Younger children do better with a barbecue and a short stretch of track, and the school-holiday junior ranger tour is built for that age group.
When is the best time to see wildlife?
Dusk and after dark. Spotted-tailed quolls, brush-tailed phascogales and microbats are most active then, which is what the twilight tour is designed around. Daytime visitors do well with birds instead: glossy black-cockatoos, wompoo fruit-doves and koalas in the eucalypts near the picnic area.
What should we bring?
Drinking water first, since there is none on site. Then enclosed shoes, insect repellent, a hat, sunscreen and a raincoat, plus a torch for the twilight tour. There is no mobile reception at Copeland Tops, so download your maps and confirm the booking before you leave Gloucester.
Ninety minutes out, and a fire pit waiting
Book the mine for a Wednesday or a Saturday and build the stay around it, because it is the only thing here that runs to a timetable. Everything else waits for you. Come back to 25 acres above the valley, a private pool, a fire pit and a veranda facing the last of the light. Boots off, something cold, and the day’s gold still in your pocket.