Saddle Hill gold reefs

I can vouch that there is some monster eels near the confluence of three o’clock and the Taieri. I have been dredging in there and there is evidence of old bulldozers and machinery that they must have dumped in the river during the construction of the Taieri gorge railway. The water is tea colored with some pretty deep holes. This environment must create the perfect place for eels to live. I was in one of these holes and I can tell you that the eels were surrounding ourselves and it was pretty disconcerting. Next minute one of these takes a bite out of my dredging partners wet suit which causes the rest of the eels to get in a frenzy. To say we got out of there pretty fast was an understatement! I would estimate some of those eels would be easy 2 m in length. One of the other issues with that area for dredging is dealing with the large slabs of country rock that have fallen of the hills into the river. You would need a serious sized excavator to move some of these to get to bottom.The Taieri was actually famous for eel farming back in the day. They say eels are a good indicator of the health of a river ?
I do recall doing a snipe mission out in Mt Watkins which is in the boundaries of Dunedin city on the North branch of the waikouaiti one summer and recall what looked and smelt like a algal bloom. Dead fish and eels everywhere. Ended up getting into the water and approx half an hour later having to get out with a full body rash and tingling in my arms and legs. That actually reminds of a story from the farm owner out that way who used to cull geese and on one occasion opening up the stomach of a dead geese and finding a 1/2 oz gold nugget!
I’ve worked the gravels of the Taieri at Hindon and also downstream near Xmas creek and could average approx a quarter an oz in fine gold a day with a 4 inch dredge just working the top 30 cm of gravel. This is now all under claim
I knew a guy who dredged at the bridge at Outram after the 2015 floods and and pulled out just shy of an oz in fine gold. Its the sort of river where the pay-streak seams to move a lot as every time I seam to pan out there I find bugger all
@Oldrimu yes if you get the chance check out the silversteam at Whare flat. Easy to get a couple of grams a day with a sluice and working the cracks, You just have pick your spot. I think its a bloody tragedy one of the landowners out there locks the gate on a public road and his behavior is endorsed by the DCC. This sort of thing really pisses me of as a bloody taxpayer Im paying for the up keep of a public road that is well graded and kept for only the benefit of one landowner to drive his Prado up and down. Its bloody corrupt!
Graham I might need some of your dynamite to blow that bloody gate of its hinges

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there was a guy up here that used to lock out public access to the rangitata. he was taken to court and lost big time. he used to make access as difficult as possible though. stock in every paddock and every gate shut.

Hi lammerlaw.I used to live in Waipori Falls since I was 5 till about 11 when they turned the power station to electric control,my father worked in the station.I know exactly what the eels are like up there I remember I must have been about 8 ,my dad and my teachers husband Michael Horgan were dredging for some gold on their farm up el dorado road I think it’s called,Tim my friend at the time went and set a thread line trying to catch an eel,anyhow we left it there and I can’t recall how many weeks it was before we went back up there but when we went and to check the line there was a monster on it, I was s&*t scared thinking back it would have been well over 2m long ,we tried to wrestle it out of the creek but the eel was to much for a couple of 8yr boys,we ran back to tell our dad’s but he got whacked by an electric fence so that was the end of that day.im sure if our fathers seen this eel there would have been no more dredging in that creek.

I know that gate well your referring to. The property owner has setup cameras and is anal about the lock on the gate. There is absolutely nothing he can do if you drive up that road to the silverstream. Ive heard of people getting locked in there as the property owner locks the gate on the way out. DCC who are a bunch of radical left leaning PC risk adverse beurocrats refuse to do anything about it as from what I can gather the property owner has a history of and money to litigate in the courts. DCC need to grow some balls and look at the public good vs the individual.
Very interesting post btw lammerlaw, oldrimu and NG

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if its a paper road with public access it shouldn’t matter how much money he has behind him. he will lose in court unless there are special circumstances that haven’t been mentioned. the case here had nothing to do with local council. it was between the cocky and I think fish and game. why doesn’t someone approach your local fish and game about it

This has been the best thread I have seen on here for a long time. While I am aware of the Saddle Hill Reefs & the historic workings around the Dunedin area it has been fantastic to hear some of your guys personal experiences & success. Awesome. Thanks for sharing.

Best of luck out there

JW :slight_smile:

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Oh… & the eels were a hoot to. Reminds me of a yarn a mate of mine told me about an eel in the Kawarau River at the Roaring Meg. It goes back over 20 years ago He had a mate who was sluicing in the old workings opposite the Roaring Meg. He was sort of living in there doing it. He wasn’t supposed to be but was on some good gold. He was sluicing at night time so the dirty water in the river couldn’t be seen & traced to him. He had fixed up the flying fox cable to get access. One day my mate went to visit him & bring him some supplies. They were on the opposite side from the Meg at the flying fox just chatting. They saw a kayaker coming down the river & were watching him while they chatted. Just before the kayaker reached the rapids they noticed what they thought was a log washing down behind the kayaker. It was getting closer to the kayak all the time. They then suddenly realised that it was a monstrous eel & it was chasing the short length of rope that has that little plastic carry handle trailing behind the kayak. The eel thinking it was something worth having a munch at. My mate & his mate were suddenly hysterically yelling out to this guy to worn him. Not that it would have done much good for the bloke & it was probably lucky that he couldn’t hear them due to the roar of the rapids. Ignorance is bliss. He was none the wiser. The eel must have realised it wasn’t dinner & vanished back into the depths. My mate & his mate were just gobsmacked at the size of the eel.

Another yarn I heard about concerning eels was when the Clyde dam had been built & was being backfilled. Some guys were dredging behind that island at the confluence of the Kawarau & Clutha just below where the old bridge was crossing over to old Cromwell town. They always thought that it was undredgeable & knew the old bucket dredges couldn’t get right in behind there & it was probably loaded with gold. Well with the water level going to be rising they thought they would give it a shot as they would never get the chance again. Well it was loaded with gold but time was against them. So they decided to dredge 24 hours a day in three 8 hour shifts. For the night dives they rigged up lights &…well you can imagine what the lights did for the eels. The guy who went down for the first night dive never gave it a thought until he felt something pulling or bumping him. His realisation of what it was struck fear & terroir into him & he was out of there as fast as lightening. That was the end of any night diving from any of them. Now I may have got my wires crossed here as I also recall a story where the guys decided to do the 24 hour a day dredging thing due to the dam builders doing bank stabilization, dumping truck load after truck load of rocks & boulders down the bank & into the river. It just happened to be in a spot where these guys were on to a fabulous paystreak that appeared to be heading towards this bank. Hence the night dives. Either way the eel situation was the same. I am sure some of you older dredging people will be aware of these stories. If I racked my grey matter I could probably come up with some names, but that is probably best not to mention.

Good luck out there

JW :slight_smile:

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I knew Michael Horgan…I used to call in to see him now and again. His farm was called ‘Tarndale’ - I have driven the road past his farm many thousands of times over the course of just under fifty years. I also remember the gold workings on his farm when they were mining the upper reaches of the creek. I do not think that they did too well.

My father told me they he started a small scale operation up but didn’t do very well.Great place up there though,hadn’t been past there for 20yrs until I had to go fix a dump truck when i was mechanicing, that was working up there I think they raised the deep stream or something like that.

They put a weir on it apparently. That part of the country was rarely visited and there is no written history of the gold mining up there in the early days.

Yeah I never got to see where they were working as it was dark when I left.You obviously know the area well I always wondered if there was much gold in the river from the village down to Berwick which I’ve travelled up and down million times(not much fun in a Bedford school bus in summer everyday I can tell you).Although I probably wouldn’t like to be in that water as the sewage drains in there from the treatment station.

A lot of gold was found just up from the No4 powerhouse in the late 1960s and through the 1970s by Stan Rainsford who owned the Taieri Sports Depot and his gold mining partner John Dean…They also worked the Taieri at Mt Allan and the Taieri at Annets Creek

Saddle Hill Gold Reefs.pdf (177.4 KB)

Stan Rainsford, now that is a name I haven’t heard of for many, many years.
I purchased my little gold dredge from a chap that lived in Tyne Street in Mosgiel but I can’t remember his name.
I attach some more old newspaper articles on Saddle Hill. It seems that it never reached the potential that many thought it had.

I don’t know it the attached file is readable. May be too big. Will split it and repost

Yes that is Stan. He was a good guy. Served in Italy in WWII. He lived on Bush Road then moved across toward the Silver Stream. Every person who went gold mining back then knew each other and we all had a great relationship. We would invite each other to our favourite spots and there was no let downs. I used to spend a lot of time in his shop as a young fella. Back then the dredges were mostly underwater ones run by a motor which sat in a large car/ truck tyre.

Thanks NG, I will give it a go sometime. I think a lot of the land at Whare Flat is owned by the Scouts Ass’n. Is the are you refer to above or below the ford? That is the place where you have the option of fording the stream or going over the small concrete bridge.

There must be gold below the lake between the dam and the power station it’s pretty rocky though I remember seeing boulders the size of a land drover in the valley.Post office creek isn’t far from the dam so there must be some big gold there.

Yes there sure is gold…ya just got to look for it. It is amusing that it has not had much attention in recent years…all those who don’t seem to have a brain or the ability to do some research seem to think that all the gold is on a spot already under claim and want to muscle in whereas some better spots are not considered. Human nature based on a lack of ability to think, to capitalise out of others and jealousy. Not so long ago that my son caught two fellows on my place, one being a paydirt member! I know many spots with great potential based on historic finds and yet they are not even considered.

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It is above the ford where the road heads up to where they take water for the town water supply. The concrete bridge you talk about is on the scouts association land.
When you are up there in that area there is also antimony reefs in powder hill. You will find a lot of iron stone and even some garnet in the wash. The other interesting thing you will find up there is what the old timers called Chinamen stones which are basically a silcreted quartz conglomerate. These are found throughout Otago particularly in places like Naseby and Alexandra. They typically signify the basal component of the quartz gravels that cover much of Otago and occur when ground water precipitates minerals that cement the quartz gravels together. As they are dense and usually found near bedrock they signified to the old timers that there would be good gold in the vicinity. If you go into the Taieri you will see Chinamen rocks and they are a good indicator of a heavy line due to density.

Speaking of the post office creek area and the Mangatua hills there has been some recent detecting going on around the Dunedin side of these hills. Right on the spurs there is some good size nuggety gold that is being pulled out. It reminds me of some dredging I did out in Woodside Glen on Lee creek. Nice fine gold and I was surprised at how much was in there so decided to take the sluice and detector up into the catchment of this creek behind Outram. Found some nice bedrock and cleaned out the cracks and found match head size gold. As I went up the creek the gold got bigger. My biggest piece was approx 1.3 g.
As Lammerlaw points out there is some amazing creeks out there in that vicinity that are unclaimed. I do know the farmer at post office creek is pretty unpopular and has been doing some illegal gold mining on his block and denying public access by way of a paper road to the creek. I recall him watching us one day and locking the gate on his way out. I always carry bolt cutters with me. Im well within my right to cut bolts on a public road if access is being denied. I dropped the cut padlock back in his letterbox on the way back home.

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My son and I have both spent time on the hills and in the creeks above Woodside - in my case many years ago. The first time I was there was on an exercise and it was the middle of the night so I never saw much! I do remember thinking a snake had wrapped itself around my ankle when something grabbed me and slammed a bayonet on the end of the Army rifle hard into the ground to kill it - it is sure just as well I missed as it was the Sergeant and he chose me to ambush - the bayonet was stuck in the ground inches in front of his face - I bet he never ambushed any one else like that! That was a life time ago. Well it is not the forum for such accounts so I shant tell any more except…no I wont tell that!

Post Office Creek was claimed by Bill Sinclair and I do not know what he got out of it. I shall make no comment about the land owner. As far as locked gates are concerned I was sitting in the DCC offices the other day and we were discussing roads, gates and access. One can carry bolt cutters but one must know exactly where the public road is and if the locked gate is not on the public road but to one side then it can cause a lot of grief to the person who cuts the lock. The El Dorado track is actually a public road much of its length but no vehicle could possible negotiate much of it. I found that out over forty years ago when I had to walk miles to get a tractor! In fact a 4WD tractor has been hopelessly bogged along the Paper road line. Some arsehole cut the lock on my gate and I assume they thought they were on the paper road but it is twenty metres from the gate - I have a security camera up now as well as road spikes. I dont mind any one accessing the public paper road as long as they keep to it…they have to drive over a waterway first and along 100 metres of swamp.
I have never trespassed and have always accorded the land owner/occupier the courteousy of asking - is it too much to expect the same courteousy?
As I said somewhere we all knew each other - there was no poaching on others spots. We all helped each other out one way or another. There was none of this talk about accessing via bolt cutters nor without the farmers consent. It was ALWAYS given - we never once had a reject. Why do farmers deny access now? - Two reasons - 1) OSH and draconian Government legislation which is treasonous and unfair 2) Smart arses who have spoilt it for us all…any way back to Bill Sinclair - Dad went with him to his spot on the Shag River on quite a few occasions and one day Dad picked up a 12 pennyweight (18 g) nugget. Dad never thought twice about it - he just gave it to Bill - that is what it was like in those days. My Uncle took a friend gold mining in Deep Creek Skippers about 1970 and told the friend that, “Today everything I find is yours” - the friend went home with 1 1/2 ounces - about 46 gram. A friend came with me one day and I got him an 18 pennyweight nugget - (27 g) - Times have changed as a new generation with less scruples and less honour have arrived on the scene and greed takes over.
Saying all that I would deem the Post Office creek access road fair game IF the gate is actually on the road…if not then it could be a problem as the court would rule in favour of the land owner even though the person who wanted access is pretty much in the right regarding access but in the wrong destroying private property.
New Zealand is fast becoming an elitist society where money talks and every one else loses their rights and priviledges and when they try to enforce their rights it goes against them. In other words if you do cut the lock of the gate to Post Office Creek and the land owner seeks police intervention and it goes to court the person who cut the lock off may not necessarily win. Is the gate slap bang ON the legal road? If not - case lost! If you find where the legal road is and cut the fence then did you seek permission to obtain access via the gate along the fence first? - If not case lost! If you sought access first and they refused to open the gate for you will you win? The answer is depending on the situation because the farmers defence could be 1) Dangerous hazards which mean that access could put you in jeopardy 2) Lambing 3) Construction work and so on. The court could rule against you - case lost! The ONLY way to win is to seek legal access FIRST. In some cases Newspaper Public Notices give notification that public walk ways and access are closed due to various factors eg Lambing. Assuming that a formed road is a legal road is also a risky assumption. The formed track on my place is not a legal road - the legal road goes along the other side of the fence and is through a swamp. If someone asks me then I allow them to use MY track to access but if they are ignorant bastards then they have to walk the legal paper road and thats a chore. A lot of it comes down to the approaches you make and the relationships you develop. I HAVE to deny shooting access because there are so many want it so I restrict it to people who are decent and ask and who reciprocate BUT the other day I got a phone call from a fellow who asked and when I said no he said that he was disappointed because he thought it was DoC estate and was actually standing at the gate where the trespass notice was and saw my phone number so to do the right thing phoned me - Now he did the right thing - He asked! How could I say no? It would have been mean of me to do so - because he asked I gave him the go ahead to have a day on my place.
Its all about developing relationships and or doing things legally - not cutting gate locks and risking repercussions.

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this has been a great read all the way through. including the ell stories, which we all seem to have. as far as comments I cant go there as im a coaster and know bugger all about the area.
I do remember the big land march through the porinui (sorry spelling ) station back in the mid 70s big group walked through the station when they locked all the gates. had a surveyor with us (over 100 people) just cut the fences where there was no gate on the public road. quite legal at the time . it did work as the station owner then gated the public road not that you could drive it .

personally I have always found it quite good to just ask to go there. a dozen beer it the back of the truck unlocks a lot of gates. most land owners just like to know where people are on their property. if push comes to shove try super glue in the padlock that will piss a bolted gate owner of that is across a public road.
end of the day just ask the worse that they can say is no. after all it is their land. I would be pissed if someone just walked on to my land and started digging holes