A similar situation in NZ - but lots of Scots came to settle in Dunedin and Scots pipes flourished.
I think Dazbo has listed some of the problems.
A set of Northumbrians made by Baty in the 19th C was brought out by a relative of his but once he died the pipes were just left and were almost thrown in the rubbish about 50 years ago.
John Miller heard of them, bought them and restored them (but they're still hard to play). There were no further Northumbrian pipes in NZ until I bought my set (made by Ken Fisher in 1972) and John bought a Burleigh set a few years later. (Our Geordie piping population has grown since then.)
There was a set of Scots parlour pipes (that looked like baby war pipes) belonging to someone in Auckland - Taff Hennessey was trying to master those back in the 80s, and there were a few sets of Irish pipes - one made in Wellington in the mid 20thC by old Mr McPhee, who had a music shop at the time and, according to his son who demonstrated the pipes in the 60s, there was a group who played regularly but I never met anyone who heard them.
I believe Taff had imported a set of Uillean pipes but when he found them too physically demanding he 'swapped' them and Terry Carroll took them on. For awhile Auckland had several Uillean pipers.
There was/is also a set of pipes that were played regularly in a settlement north of Auckland, called Puhoi. I was told they were Irish but they're actually a Bohemian Dudelsac! They belonged to a Dalmation immigrant and there's still a strong community there, although I don't know if anyone still plays those pipes today.
Apart from that, Scots pipes flourished out here and every town must have had it's own pipe band. Many places have Highland Games with dancing and piping competitions (and caber throwing too) and whenever there's a parade (blossom or Christmas) there'll always be at least one pipe band.
BUT NZ doesn't have a great fiddling tradition - violins, pianos and classical training certainly, but we didn't hear what I call fiddling until maybe the 60s. School children were taught to be orchestral violinists.
People who came to NZ were literate and musically literate as well.
Some dance bands had a violin but it was usually played 'straight', not with the technique used by Bluegrass or Celtic fiddlers today.
There may have been pockets of folk activity out on the goldfields, but the NZ Folklore Society spent a lot of time looking in the 60s and 70s and didn't find much at all.
Robyn