Long time reader, first time poster. I am heading home from Perth for a couple of weeks of whitebaiting and gold prospecting at the end of October (16th to the 1st of November) and would be keen to meet up with any other members who are based in Marlborough. I have my own prospecting gear (sluice, classifiers etc) and 4WD but digging holes and washing rocks is far more enjoyable if there is someone else to share a cuppa with while laughing at the current state of the Australia rugby team.
If anyone is interested to head up the Howard or over to Murchison get in touch on here and we can try to make plans.
I’d love to catch up, however I’ll be arriving in Wakamarina (Havlock) just above Howard, at about that time if everything goes to plan (this time).
After that I’ll be heading to Murchison, but only to move on to Lyall.
If Wakamarina doesn’t suit I’ll make a beeline for Murchison.
I assume you were headed to New Creek & Louis Creek free fossicking areas?
There are often lots of people in that area over the warmer months (probably because of the two fossicking locations).
I’m a detectorist, but happy to hang out and move some rocks.
As @element111 has just said, the Wakamarina is locked up in claims, unless you have express permission from a claim owner then you cannot fossick for gold anywhere in that locality, it’s not a place for Aucklanders to come down and plead ignorance.
There is no public fossicking area in or around the Wakamarina / Canvastown area
Your nearest public fossicking areas are two sections of the Aorere river in Collingwood / Golden Bay, the upper sections only of New Creek and Louis Creek in the Howard, and a small section of Lyell in the Buller.
I could well be at Louis creek during October but only during the weekends. I usually drive up from Christchurch do some fossicking and stay Saturday night then hit the creek again in the morning, heading home mid Sunday afternoon. It all depends on the weather, I try to pick weekends with the chance of some sun or little rain… hate being wet and cold.
I’d put a ring around Labour weekend, an extra day at the creek sounds good to me.
See ya there.
Looks like the weather gods have given us their blessing, I have my truck all loaded and will be up at sparrow fart and hitting the road. See you there, I’ll be up at the DOC hut at around 10:30 tomorrow.
I was up there today, creek has good flow, fine weather all day and hardly a sand fly to be seen. Haven’t done the final clean up but got a bit of gold, nothing big so far but plenty of fine stuff. I won’t make it up tomorrow but will head up Sunday so will see you then.
I watched it fall off the shovel onto the slick plate of my sluice and after all the gravels had washed away it was still there sitting on the slick plate with the water ripping over it, slowly it moved to the first riffle and there it sat until I pulled the sluice for a cleanup. Would like to catch a few more of those.
The bottom of my dig went from deep to shallow and the gold stopped at the same time. I didn’t feel like starting another dig at the creek so I packed up my gear on Sunday afternoon and made the journey back to Christchurch. I will be back to start work on another boulder garden the next fine weekend.
Bloody hell that’s a decent chunk of gold! I’m heading up this weekend on Saturday so will see you up there possibly. I go to the first track down to the creek rather than going round to the doc hut.
Hi, my plan is to do a dig just up from the first track, I found some good gold there two years ago but got defeated by the rocks and boulders, I just didn’t have the right gear to work the area. Now I have the right stuff it’s game on. See you there.
I feel like that every time I leave there Ken lol
The boulders always seem to win up there! All tho I did get this bit from lower end last week
Regards Dave
Nice chunky piece of gold there Dave, those are the buggers I’m looking for. It’s not looking promising weather wise for the weekend at this stage but I will try to get up there next fine weekend.
