James by this time heard about the Australian gold rush, borrowed some money and took a boat to Melbourne.

On arrival in Melbourne in 1873 aged 18 years (clad in chinese costume and hair in pigtail) he was stoned in the streets and feeling most unwelcomed, returned to the boat and continued to Georgetown (situated at the mouth of the Tamar River, 55 km north of Launceston).   

To earn money, James chopped wood on Sundays, his only day off, he walked the long distance to Launceston in order to mix with the chinese community already established because of the discovery of tin on the slopes of Mt, Bischoff in 1871 and at Mt Helens in 1874.

James moved to Launceston and leased the backyard of Mr Frank Walker  the florist.   He grew vegetables which he sold from a cart about the streets of Launceston.   Mr Walker had great influence on James, encouraged him to become a Christian, (the Methodist bible study group young ladies taught English to the Chinese on Sundays), and after some time they both headed to the north east of Tasmania to make their fortune in tin mining.   

They found tin in a creek at South Mt Cameron - James had to walk 122km to Launceston to register the claim while Mr Walker stayed on site.

They worked the tin mine but had to pay 50% of the profits to the farmer who owned the land.   In order to make more money and to retain all profits, they went further up stream, found another workable site and pegged their claim.   

The story is that a large company purchased their claim and both James and Mr Walker received 1,000 pounds each.   All this happened prior to 1885.