Megan Ide-Neill, father Stu Ide and Germany-based New Zealander Michael Cocks teamed up to win the three-person team title at the World Gold Panning Championships in Scotland.
The trio were members of a nine-strong Kiwi contingent, including seven from the Wakatipu, competing at the six-day championships in the town of Moffat.
Mrs Ide-Neill said she and her father felt "utter disbelief" at the win, and were so shocked by the comfortable 1min 46sec winning margin that they called an adjudicator over to ask if it was really true.
"We couldn’t believe we’d done it."
For her father, now holidaying with her mother, Sandy, in Scotland, winning a world title had been a "dream come true".
The trio were then joined by Queenstown husband and wife Amanda and David Gatward-Ferguson in the five-member "Black Pans" team, which claimed fourth place in the blue ribbon five-member-team event.
Mrs Gatward-Ferguson also won bronze in the one-armed panning category.
Mrs Ide-Neill said a key to the group’s success was the time they had spent watching other competitors to devise winning strategies, especially for dealing with the sticky, clay-heavy gravel they had to work with.
Competitive gold panning involves panning a bucket of dirt containing gold flakes as quickly as possible, with time penalties imposed for every flake missed.
