At Maori Point, three miles up the Greenstone Creek, above the junction of the Little Hohonu, Hunt, assisted by his Maori mate, pegged out a claim, and thus came into being the first gold mining area in Old Westland. Here, beneath from two to six feet of soil, lay three to four feet of very rich wash dirt, from which a large quantity of gold was extracted. It is noteworthy that at the time of this find Hunt was the only European in this district, which was very rough and broken and so thickly covered with underscrub as to be almost impenetrable.
Hunt and his Maori friends continued to prospect in the vicinity of his claim and discovered coarse gold over a wide area and fine gold right down to high water mark. Hunt at this time was earning £2 per day, and though food supplies were very meagre he managed to subsist for some time on fern root plus a few potatoes. With the advent of the depot at the Grey the food problem ceased to exist, for then supplies could be packed along the beach from that river to the Taramakau, and thence by canoe to within three miles of these diggings.
Hunt later received a reward of £200 from the Canterbury Provincial Government, who had originally offered £1,000 for the discovery of a payable field, but who reconsidered their decision and paid the intrepid prospector a mere £200.
