Show us ya Gold!

kiwigold · March 31, 2021, 8:42pm

Holly Hell. Was up a creek the other day in an area not known for gold. Was just checking it out, as the geology looked good. Got up into the headwaters and came across an adit. (Tunnel) which was into hard rock. So being a nosey bugga. Ventured in. No hard hat, But always carry a head mounted LED with me. Went in about 30 metres, just about shit myself when I disturbed a colony of long tailed bats, but they didn’t mind me. Phew the place stank with bat poo. The props were in good condition. Which was quite amazing. But it was a dry adit. Got to the end, and came across what appeared to be the last shot fired, as there was quite a rockfall. The interesting part was, I could see some quartz fragments contained within. So got down on my hands and knee’s and started scratching around. Well I found more than I bargained for. Human remains, a bloody skeleton. Some poor old “Hatter” had come to a sad end. Must have had some sort of a malady just after he lit the fuse, and was unable to retreat to safe ground when the shot went off. Obviously a loner. As he was still where he had fell. Poor bugga.
But on picking up several ofthe fragments of quartz, there gleaming at me was the yellow metal. In all its glory. The best sample I have ever seen. I pocketed them and beat a hasty retreat. After saying a quick prayer for our fallen mate.
I am now in a bit of a quandary as to what to do. Do I go to the authorities and tell of my find. Or do I just keep it to myself and carry on where the poor ole fella left off. I can kinda put him together and carry him out, and give him a decent burial. And then get rich. The long tailed bats are a bit of a problem, esp with DOC. But I am sure after I fire a few shots, they will decide to find a new home. Or maybe I could put a real big shot in. And they would be ejected out like a projectile out of a mortar. Lammerlaw could help me there, I reckon. There would be a few casualties, what do they call it. Peripheral damage. But the survivors could breed up again, I reckon.
I’m gunna sit on it for a while and give it some thought. Anyhow here is a pic of the ore samples I grabbed. And “NO” I won’t tell you where it is. Only clue is. Its in the South Island.

Cheers Trev aka “The Hatter”

AndyClause · March 31, 2021, 9:23pm

May not be an old timer though , could solve an old cold case

Gold_Standard · March 31, 2021, 11:20pm

That’s not April fools gold is it?

Lammerlaw · March 31, 2021, 11:22pm

How do you manage to take such good photos…if my camera doesn’t improve it’s going to be put on Death Row.
I explored many mines and drives on the Wesg Coast - around Totara Flat and inland from Ahaura, Nelson Creek etc.
I always kept my eye open for a skellington or two, victims of fowl play ( there were Moas around then - right?)
Never found any skellingtons but l knew a spot behind Totara Fkat where you could pan a lot of gold double quick.
Forty years later l went back but the native tree landmarks are gone and it was pine forest, burnt out cars and someone shadowing every move we made.

My son found a gold reef with my Minelab Xtreme and specimen gold is there for the finding- if you can break the reef out of the matrix.

A friend of mine frequents the spoil dump of a mine in ltaly and does very well. He sent some samples to me. Over 5 grams here.

kiwigold · April 1, 2021, 12:54am

Would I “The Hatter” be so cruel. And deceitful. I will let the Paydirt Jury decide. My fate rests in their hands. Oh no. “Not the noose”

“The Hatter”

Lammerlaw · April 1, 2021, 2:09am

Havent you ever heard the old saying ‘give the dog a bone’

Because l collect old things a young lad brought me a bag of bones…l kid you not. The moment he walked in l knew what he had. They came from a cemetry that was being eroded by the sea…nothing like a skelington in the closet!

The_Sluicer · April 2, 2021, 1:58am

Good Friday is now Gold Friday for us just spent the morning mining away in a creek on the coast and got one of our best hauls, 7 buckets and it weighed 5.96 on the scales with the bit of black sand so probably between 4-5 grams of gold overall, we were doing pretty good cleaning out the bedrock and the we found a bit of a pit/hole in the bedrock that just kept giving out the colour.

Cheers

danno · April 2, 2021, 4:05am

awesome mate beautiful gotta love those days aye thanks for showin us ya gold it keeps me inspired and always smiling when i see gold be it yours or mine gold always makes me shine …well done fella

GoldFox · April 2, 2021, 4:31am

Is that from public area ?…good effort… …

kiwijw · April 2, 2021, 7:48pm

I doubt it.

JW

The_Sluicer · April 4, 2021, 11:31pm

Unfortunatley it was not from a public fossicking area but it is not far from one of the public areas though and feeds from the same source (although you can probably say that about a lot of gold bearing rivers ).

GoldFox · April 4, 2021, 11:48pm

Fair enough ;)… your up Nelson Area? Or down Grey…? …

The_Sluicer · April 5, 2021, 12:09am

We normally prospect in the Grey or Buller district this here was from thr Grey area .

GoldFox · April 5, 2021, 12:36am

Cool Just moved to Hokitika I might see you guys one Day ! Good Luck out there and stay safe

The_Sluicer · April 5, 2021, 1:02am

Nice one, Goldsborough is one of our favourite public sites and we have been there at least a dozen times if not more and always get reasonable gold maybe we could catch up some time . See you later

GoldFox · April 5, 2021, 6:14am

Yeah sounds good to me just came back from Goldsborough spend few hours prospecting found 3 kind of ok spots 15 to 20 color a pan so will get my sluice out next weekend ;)…

kiwijw · April 6, 2021, 8:45am

I have a bit of catching up to do.

A friend & I went to a spot we hadn’t been to for a couple of years. Back then I was using the GPZ & ML 14 x 13 coil & got about 6 bits. My friend was using his 4500 & 14 x 9 Nugget Finder Evo coil. He got skunked. We hadn’t been back there since but he now also has a GPZ & one of these 15" concentric Russian made X coils. So we thought we would try this spot again. I went over the oldtimer gully workings & got one little piece. He got nothing here & decided to try the next little gully over. He never got there as he ended up finding a wee patch on the rise between the two gullies. He ended up with 15 bits that day for just over 3 grams.
He told me to come on over & give it a go. I said no its your find you keep on going. Later on he told me again to give it a shot. So an hour after that I wandered over & tried below where he had been. I got one small bit & that was it.

We went back on another day separately as he had to be home earlier & he went to the spot earlier than me & when I got there he was just leaving but got another 15 for just over 3 grams again.

I detected over his first days finds area very carefully & slowly. I was leaving the virgin ground for him as it was his find & that was the right thing to do.

Well I got my first signal pretty quickly.

Ended up being 1.2 grams

Before back filling the hole I re checked the hole & the dig out dirt. Ended up getting 4 more bits out of the dig out pile. I had a feeling there would be more smaller gold that the 15" Coil wouldn’t be getting so I just placed a flat slab of schist over the hole & decided I would come back another day with the Gold Monster to check it over.

I ended up with 12 bits for the afternoon & the last one was the 2nd biggest. So I called it quits on that note.

That was a bit of fun for the afternoon.

I got a signal that had me dig down to the bedrock that exposed a crack that I thought the signal was coming from. So I raked the point of the pick through it trying open it up & break into it. No joy, signal still in there. So I started smashing at the bedrock but it was hard as hell & giving my pick a hard time. I then noticed that the signal was more coming from the left side from the crack & there was no way I could smash it to get at it. So I decided I would bring back my battery powered hammer/drill.

My mate & I went back the next saturday & this time I had my Gold Monster & the hammer drill.

I went straight to my first dig hole to see if the Gold monster would ping any more bits from the dug out pile. It got 9. Crazy. I got a few others with the 15" coil on the Zed among the dug over area that my mate had been over. I then went to find my bedrock with the crack in it. I hadn’t told my mate of that & he had back filled the hole when he tidied up his diggings. I was able to get the signal again & soon had the dirt back out & exposed the crack. Got stuck into it with the hammer drill.

Ended up being a .44 gram piece

Then things dried up for me so I decided to go back to my first hole & dig it up again & just make the hole bigger wider deeper digging more out of it. That paid off & I got another 9 bits. Both with the Gold Monster & the Zed.

Ended up with 24 pieces for the day.

Well believe it or not my mate & I headed back again on Easter Friday. We went along the hill side a couple of gullies further but on the same horizon level seeing if we couldn’t pick up on a continuation of this deposit. We didn’t so we gravitated back to his patch area. He went over his old ground again & managed to get two bits fairly early in the peace. I was having no luck what so ever so I dropped down lower below his patch area & to cut a long story short I got 22 bits for the day. They were crazy small for that 15" coil. That is all I used as I didn’t take the gold monster this time. I couldn’t believe the small gold this coil got. Insane.

Loving this coil.

Good luck out there

JW

Lammerlaw · April 7, 2021, 7:18am

Great going John - I am jellyarse. I got a bit down from where you and Henry were - I think there could be quite a lot there as I only scratched the surface really but had to come home - bugger it all.