Learned to prospect and mine on the lindis river. Amazing place and some amazing history to be seen too including the old Lindis Pass hotel and Wattie Thompson’s old hut and the awesome herringbone tailings up camp creek.
Must still be a lot of flood gold getting moved around the lindis cause I was able to rock up there several years ago and pull an ounce out of each of the first 3 inside bends with a sluice box below the camp in the paddock… very accessible and I highly doubt it hadn’t been worked plenty of times previously.
There’s a claim on it now. I nice fella by the name of Roger. Was happy for me to pan and sluice. Haven’t been in a few years so definitely check in with him first if you’re wanting to have a play. (To anyone else reading)
Tried to upload a video of a section I worked where the river had cut the bank back a few meters exposing old gravels that I got good gold out of… but apparently I’m not authorized to share a video I recorded on my own phone haha go figure.
Video from a nice crack, blew it out with my pressure nozzle and it was like a shower of gold come out ,never got to the bottom but I’ll find it this summer,got .3 ounce in an hr out of this spot
Good going. I like those videos. Brings back memories. Can you imagine the day though when I cleared some gravel like that and was face to face with over a half pound of gold!
Last Saturdays result for an afternoon detect taking the GPZ 7000 & 15x10 inch Russian made X coil for a walk to an area I haven’t got any gold for a while. But I hadn’t had the 15x10 X coil in there. Bingo.
Then on Sunday I took a GPX 5000 for a spin to a local Queenstown spot. First time ever using the 5000. Gosh it was so much lighter than the Zed. I was using a Nugget Finder Advantage 12x7 coil on it. Good sized coil for poking & prodding among rocks & bushes in the old timer workings.
Wasn’t having much luck & wasn’t even getting any junk. Didn’t mind that bit & didn’t even get one shotgun pellet. Was about to pack it in & was heading back towards my wagon when I thought I would try a last bit of bedrock that the oldtimers had stacked some rocks on top of from ground they had worked. The briar rose & broom had died off a bit & I was able to get into parts of this area that I had never been able to get into before. The rocks werent that deep on top of the bedrock so I just waved the coil over the top of them. Thought I got a very faint signal. So I lifted off a few of the rocks so I could get the coil closer to the bedrock. A definite signal & it turned out to be a bit of gold.
Moving along the same run of crevice in the bedrock I got another signal from on top of the rocks sitting on the bedrock. Moved these off & the signal improved. I was getting down quite deep into the crevice before the signal was out.
Two small bits for the afternoon. I called it quits on those & was quite chuffed to have found anything at all, especially for the first time using this detector & the first time using a GPX for three years.
Nice one JW, nice to see that you rotate thru ur detectors periodically, just to give us all hope that with our older models we are still gonna find sime.
Hi Dave, Thanks mate. I just cant bloody help myself & got a GPX 5000. Don’t know why really as it isn’t a pinch on the GPZ 7000 but boy it is a lot lighter to throw around. LOL I am going to have to get back in there with the Zed as it was ground I had never got into before & so un detected ground. I had better be quick smart now with spring on us & the fresh growth that will suddenly take off & it will be a battle to get back in there.
I reluctantly have my old faithful tried & proven GPX 4500 up for sale if anyone is interested. If so I will throw up some pics & give a spiel.
Hi Guys. On Saturday after mowing the lawns & having a bit of a section tidy up & getting a vege garden happening I decided to go for a quick detect. I wanted to take the Zed & the 15x10 X coil back to the spot where I got those two bits with the GPX 5000. Got a faint signal right next to where I got the last piece of gold. Was getting down quite deep & the signal was screaming. Finally it was out of the hole but I had a bit of a mission locating it. Turned out to be a bloody old hob nail boot tack. DAMN.
Got nothing more from that run of bedrock. I wandered off just detecting as I went & hit a spot that I have detected a million times with all my different detectors & coil combinations over the years. I always give it another go when I am in that location as I got some nice bits of gold there on my very first time detecting in there with my GP 3000. Admittedly I have got nothing more there for years but I just cant help myself from waving a coil over it when I am walking past it.
Bring on the Zed & the 15x10 X coil & I got a very faint repeatable signal. I had never got anything here with the Zed & the Minelab 14" coil. But this was a very promising signal.
I gave a few scrapes & the signal was still there. So it wasn’t a shallow/surface shotgun pellet. Kept scraping & the signal was still there & sounding sweet. Started getting down a bit & was getting into some schist bedrock that I had to smash into.
Then things dried up for a bit but I got another faint signal about an hour later. Couple of scrapes & it was still there. But then it moved & I wasn’t too confident but I recovered the target & it was a small bit of gold. .08 of a gram. So from a reasonable size bit to a tiddler.
Hi guys, I am surprised to see no one has put up any finds from the long weekend so I will kick it off.
I made a phone call to a landowner whose property I had not been on for 7-8 years, maybe more. Mainly due to him denying access to everybody for reasons I won’t go into. It is actually the area where I have found my biggest nugget back in my GP 3000 days, just shy of 19 grams
Well, to my surprise the owner gave me his OK. Ye Ha. I couldn’t wait to try the GPZ & the 15x10 Russian X coil. I went straight to areas I had found gold with all my other Minelab PI detectors & all the different coil combinations. Quite a few other detectorists had been over the areas as well so it was pretty skinned out. But I knew the ability of these Russian X coils so I had high hopes.
I wasn’t disappointed. I was onto gold straight away. The conditions on Saturday & Sunday were fine but it was blowing its tits off which made for very difficult detecting conditions. It then pissed down heavily Sunday night & was still raining into the late morning hours. So I floated around at my mates place until there was a bit of a break in the weather & I decided give the detecting a go. I have always maintained that wet ground enhances the detectors depth & sensitivity. In fact I know it does. So I was pretty keen to get back up there. At least the wind had buggered off but it still drizzled & rained on & off throughout the day. I put on a rain coat & went out in the drizzle but bailed back to the wagon when it got a bit heavy.
I ended up re detecting the ground I had finds on on Saturday & ended up with 10 more bits. I put that down to the wet ground.
Right oh…some photos. In no particular order. The gold was always down through the top soil & on or in the schist bedrock.
Cracked into some crevices on my claim with the best day of 7 grams of the golden stuff…couple days well spent over the long weekend…bloody good times!
You guys down south make me jealous, big gold and open country.
Me, just pottering around with my gear fine tuning it. One of these days, I will be able to post, “On show us ya gold” but not for a while yet.
I am going to have to get back in there with the Zed as it was ground I had never got into before & so un detected ground. I had better be quick smart now with spring on us & the fresh growth that will suddenly take off & it will be a battle to get back in there.
