Hi Guys
Was just wondering if anyone had come across a blue clay at Louis creek when digging? Iâm down about 5ft!
Just wondering if anyone has had success with it or any wisdom would be much appreciated 
Regards Dave
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You must have too much energy digging down 5 feet. Thatâs crazy. One flood & back to square one. 
JW 
Have ya got any burnt wood yet?
Hi Ross
No burnt wood but also no gold or bugga all in it either lol which after day and half
But you gotta test these things lol
Regards Dave
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Yes. Well you do have to look otherwise you will never know. I got a skunk detecting yesterday so you most likely did better than me.
Best of luck out there
JW
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Ive been getting skunked for a while up there, will work it out one day
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Donât forget it was pretty heavily worked back in the depression days. A good book to
read about that is The Golden Bush by Temple Southerland. He was one of the miners there. A true account of what he writes about as are the people he speaks of but place names & peoples names have been changed in the book. But all real & true enough.
I havenât done too well there myself though but on one of my trips there meet a couple of old codgers who showed me a great pile of gold they had accumulated. It was impressive.
JW
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Itâs certainly has been worked probably even more so in the last 3 months definitely not a fossicking area anymore turned into a full-time mining creek by look of our walk today!
Yep hope something gets done about people living at the public areas and working them like that not what they should be for like the idea of familyâs and others going to have a play for the day or the weekend
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Do you happen to know what he called Louis creek in the book? Was it Merrimans?
After years of digging finally found a good enough spot only to have the residents trench it out, whatâs happened to miners etiquette, i donât mess with their spots( 4 to 6 open holes with a bucket in each hole to âclaim itâ), they will and are ruining our public areas and from what i was getting they would have got enough to buy their own claim 10x over by now, leave some for the rest of us!!!âŚâŚ.
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Hi Ross
Havenât been up there for months now kinda took the enthusiasm out of of it seeing how much full time digging had been done!!
With the price of gold I can only imagine how bad it is now unfortunately 
New Zealand used to be a nice spot once too. Nothing stays the same mate. No gold is easy gold & whatâs there is there for all. (public areas) Depends how much you want to roll up your sleeves. Any body has the right to go there no matter where they are from. If they are in NZ then they are free to do it even if they arenât from NZ & just visiting. You need to get over that attitude or it will eat you away.
JW 
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Some of the work they have done good on them lol if want to go to that extreme then I guess good for them! but thereâs abit more than just a shovel sluice and hand tools going on!!
And if there doing it full time it looks worse
Fair comment, Iâve definitely let it go lol had to really as the gold is got now aye, i was more along the lines of get a claim if ya wana make a full time job out of it, like these fellas will kill the spots for everyone else then what? Not likely to get any new public fossicing areas anytime soon!
âŚâŚâŚ iâll even help the full-timers with the application process if they need it hahaha
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Still reasonably expensive to get a claim though. A few thousand dollars may not be a lot to some people but it is to most. And then theres the ongoing costs. I certainly couldnt afford one nowdays. Just very grateful of the odd claim owner who allows access and for public areas. Its a pity they cant police the full time diggers on public claims but I guess the way things are they arent breaking any laws.
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âThat man deserves a DBâ
Bit of a late reply, but no I have no idea which was Merrimanâs that he referred to. He is dead at the moment so I canât ask him. There where many creek in the Howard area that were worked back then. Not just the Louie or New Creek of todays public areas. I havenât been there for a long time now. Probably 23 years. My mate I went with back then went there this time last year & was blown away by the activity he saw.
JW
I did a bit of research and found Merrimanâs was Louis Creek⌠Josephine was Howard river⌠Waggoners bend was Gowan Bridge⌠I did some hunting round up the headwaters of Louis creek and located what was most likely there campâŚ. Yeah its full on activity up there these days.
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