Hi
Does anyone know what happen to the claim up past the 12 Mile public area ?
Did it expire or? haven’t seen it on the permit map for a while.
Cheers Henry
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Thank’s Gavin . There used to be a private claim that started where the public " Fossicking area " finished up Maori creek and went all the way up to Lake Isobel.
I remember seeing it on the permit map when I moved to Queenstown a few years ago .
It may just have expired , heard it was hard work compliance wise.
Just had a search through my Permit Watch website and it looks like it was the surrendered permit 53475…
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Only just seen this post for some reason!. I don’t think I’ve seen you in the usual spots around Queenstown Henry so you must be good at hiding 
the top of the 12 mile has always been an issue, the last owners brought the claim area unknowingly after the council had changed the consent for the area and it could no longer be dredged and then became a hand tool only claim, I think they even paid close to $50k to so a heads up that it always pays to do research, there really isn’t much left up in the top unless you can get below the meter thick clay layer in places which is a c$nt to process. I’ve always found the deep pools below the track that nobody can see are the better prospects, for a public fossicking area it is very little used which is good for us locals, just last month I bumped into a random sniper who had got 2 five gram nuggets just 800m away from the road! Like I’ve said before on this site, it’s often the overlooked areas that are “too easy to get to” that contain the best gold. My last good 2 ounce gold hauls have been under a five minute walk from the main road.
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Hi Gavzilla
Been up for a look with a pan and a couple of times with a detector ( when I found out the claim was surrendered) but did not find anything at all , Guess it’s like the rest of 12 mile ,you have to dig deep to get some colour . I’m not really hiding but most of the time I go for a “look” during the week so I can work the same ,“mine”, spot for a couple of days ( easier when in a public fossicking area )
you’re right in saying the least “obvious” places often gives a surprise , guess they been overlooked by a lot of people .
Need to work out a simple way to process the “clay” as it holds a reasonable amount of flakes, any ideas ?
No doubt we will run into each other somewhere, I normally have a couple of cold ones in the river so looking forward to sharing one with you
Cheers Henry
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There’s a product i use called clay’b’gone you put it in a bucket with the clay and it slowly breaks it down but it’s a real pain, you still get little balls stuck together and when you put it through the sluice the clay will just steal any gold you had and roll back into the bloody river, I’ve tried everything, bonus is the gold normal sits on top and yeah they are normally good size flakes.
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