Hunting in New Zealand ( Lots of NZ Photos in this thread)

[Wildcat]

Here are some little babys I picked up last time I went to New Zealand for a holiday.
They were found between and to the left of the 2 rocks in 2nd image

 

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[nuggy]

Sooooo Retyred, I guess that was just a random point that you make to anyone in Central then. Not just successful detector operators on a public forum. And you are off here forever because.......Detecting is your hobby and passion for fifteen years?........... it's the only point you wish to express or read?............. no-one here could possibly say anything you don't already know?........ or??
If you don't want to be thought of as negative - be positive, too easy. Use friendly encouraging words, without accusations!
Seems a little strange that for two months you can't detect anywhere in the whole province for fear of disturbing stock? Land owners can usually direct people to areas away from such sensitive beasts. When I worked on a farm we carried on fencing, grubbing thistles, feeding out and even moved stock with lambs and calves from one paddock to another with dogs. All of these activities I would have thought more disturbing than detecting quietly along. Unless of course you usually arrive in a screaming, dust raising helicopter right in the middle of the lambing paddock! But I guess you'll never read this, yeah right. Nuggy

 

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[BuckSniffer]

I'm so glad this thread bubbled up. It's been fascinating reading, and the photos are awesome. Totally inspirational! Thanks for keeping it going and for sharing your adventures!

 

[granite]

We have been to NZ, South Island and visited some gold areas like Central Otago, Arrow Town, Greytown and Ross. We didn't take our detectors as it was mid winter and too darned cold for swing a coil. I wrote an article on Ross, etc for the Gem and Treasure Magazine not long after our visit. Must have been about 3 years ago.

We must get over there one day and do some swinging. One thing I have learned from this thread is that not all nuggets come from the rivers. Some spots looked very inviting.

Below is our gold from our WA trip this year

 

[nuggy]

NNNNNice gold, plenty of it too. West Australia is the best, hope to get there one day. Nuggy

 

[Lanny in AB]

JW--I love catching up on this thread! You do such a great job with your pictures and your friendly, tag-along narrative style. Excellent thread.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[kiwi jw]

Hi Guys, How you all been? Its been a while since I have done a post. Guess that is because I dont have a lot to show & tell since being back from the south Island & up home here in the Coromandel.
Granite......I remember that article that you did in the GG&T mag very well as it came just after I had been through the West Coast on my way back to the North Island from one of my stints in Central Otago. Especially in the Ross area where you visited the black beach sand operation of Birchfield mining. They are doing very well with an operation at the south end of Ross as I tap these keys.
On my way back up from Central Otago this last time I spent a week on the West Coast fossicking in different places. Called in to the Callery River which is a river that flows into the main river that drains from the Franz Joseph Glacier.

Franz Joseph Glacier

The Callery was quite rich in gold in the early days although a very difficult river to access & was done in the winter when frozen. I only spent a few hours there as it is quite a walk in there. I didnt really hold much hope of finding any thing. But I spyed a good looking crevice that was a way above the normal river flow & thought, what the heck. So with my crevicing tools I scraped out a pan full of material & went down to the freezing glacial melt water to pan it out. Bugger me, some nice bits of colour. I went back & got another pan full of material. This time I was down to a puggy blue clay & thought this should be good. As it looked to be virgin material & I doubted that it had been cleaned out before. Unfortuantly I was down to the hilt in to the crevice with my crevicing tools & could get no deeper. I got some nice pieces out of it & as it was not long before dark & I didnt have my head lamp & I had a bit of a walk ahead of me. So I headed on out. One more spot that I will have to get back to.

Gold found

My next spot was Moonlight Creek/Gully. A place I have been trying to get to in earlier times but the first two I was foiled by the weather. The 3rd time I was almost in there when I came across a big tree across the track & I had no chain saw & no way of moving it. This time I got in & had two days of brilliant weather. The first day it was early afternoon when I got in there & not knowing the area I had a bit of a walk around off the main tracks amongst the old workings & old water races. Sussed out the creek & looked for shallow exposed bed rock areas to have a go with the detector.

This is a picnic spot at the turn off from the main road & on up the Moonlight

And this is right in at the end of the driveable road to the start of the Moonlight track itself

I ended up with 6.5 grams of gold using the little joey coil & the 12" X 7" nuggetfinder advantage mono.

Also found was this beautiful 6 gram speci

Well that was it for the South Island. Since being back up home I have only been out for two weekends with my 4" dredge up a Coromandel creek. Ended up with 18 grams of pretty piss week gold compared to the gold down south. Very high silver content but some nice specimen pieces amongst it. One was even found with the detector. The bigger brown piece on the right. My first detected gold from the Coromandel.

Here is some close ups of it

And some others

Well this year has really flowen buy & it is just around the corner to xmas. Bloodey hell....where did this year go??
MERRY XMAS EVERY BODY & a prosperous new year. May your pokes be full of the yellow.

Happy hunting

Regards

JW

 

[Lanny in AB]

JW--great pictures and nice write-ups. My, but you've been a busy little nugget-shooter/dredger. Well done. It's always so great cruising though your pictures and your travelogues--gives me a well-needed fix!!

All the best,

Lanny

 

[nuggy]

Hi J W, Wildcat, Lanny and all, Well you were right at my back door on the coast here J W, on the way from the glaciers to Greymouth you actually have to drive past my house!
Moonlight is an old stamping ground of mine and it has been a rich area, consistently yielding gold despite having had a lot of attention from miners - fossickers for many years. To get any results in there you either get lucky after a flood, or you really know what you're doing. I know from your posts you fit in the 2nd category. Nuggy
PS DOC pulled out the bridge about a week ago I'm told, so you can add about a 5 k walk to get to the start of that walk track you drove to, nice of them aye!

 

[nuggy]

Have to mention the Pike River miners on here at some time. This being the unofficial Kiwi thread cops it. As the News went around the world of 29 of our men caught underground in a coal mine here, you will have heard about it. J W was fairly close by at Moonlight River.
This disaster has cast a gloom over over our town, and the suffering of families going into the festive season with this still so fresh in their minds cannot be comprehended.
I knew one of the guys very well, he was a carpenter doing contract work underground. A hell of a good guy, he worked with me on a couple of jobs. "Rolls" was a great guy to work with and a good mate. I and many others will miss him.
I know 3 others who have lost sons. Anyone with children can only sympathize totally with what they must be feeling. I won't go on about it or raise it elsewhere but it has to be at least mentioned as we are all talking mining, and it is never far from my mind these days though it is hard to talk about it. Thanks for reading this, Nuggy.

 

[Wildcat]

Been quiet lately ay? good to see things happening. Been going to email you JW but haven't got any news re house as yet. Man, that is shitty looking gold up there!! lol (You know what I mean) Only been coin bopping lately but hoping to get out again very soon. I gave my daughter one of my detectors as she is ultra keen on it and we and one of my grandkids are going to hit the bush soon.
Will keep in touch
Wildcat

(Panther on other forums)

 

[Lanny in AB]

Wildcat, AKA The Cat--nice to see you back. Glad your daughter is ready to head out detecting, and you out chasing coins can sometimes be not a bad way to burn up the time as you wait to hit the goldfields.

All the best, and thanks for your hello on the AZ Outback!!

Lanny

 

[nuggy]

Update; Moonlight bridge. For Kiwi JW. . . . Apparently, ( I haven't been up for a look myself) DOC have removed the wooden deck from the bridge due, they say, to it being unsafe to drive over? It was ok last year when I went up for a look.
There were, 15 or so years back, several batches up there that belonged to locals. Doc pushed hard for these to be removed, even though they were allowed to stay, from historic use rules, in force when DOC took over the land. Over a very short amount of time most of these burned down under suspicious circumstances. Now I believe only one still stands.

If DOC are unable to maintain these few bridges, they should all be sacked, and a crew that can do the job taken on. They charge mining permit holders to use these roads / bridges, then divert the funds to god knows what. Not the local staff's fault I know but the higher ups need a rocket under them. It is a disgrace how this recreational panning area has been treated by DOC. They no longer allow suction claims in this river even though it was the most dredged river here for 30 years. They will never avoid conflict over these policies as there is gold shedding into this river in every flood, and we get plenty of them. The locals have been fossicking there for generations and they just aren't going to stop.

A friend has been driving up to the bridge then cycling to the panning area. He tells me the locals are trying to collect funds to re-deck the bridge themselves so there is a small ray of hope, if DOC will let them do it.

Not sure if I can get my dirt bike over the bridge skeleton or not, but I'm willing use it to help you get up there next time you want to get in if you like. All the best for 2011, Nuggy

 

[kiwi jw]

Hi Nuggy, Thanks mate for that update on the bridge. I had heard that they had just pulled up the wooden planking from the steel structure with there intension to inspect the steel work for rust. I think I will give DOC in Greymouth a call & get it from the horses mouth as to what they intend to do with it. If they arent going to make it good again then I wonder if it is possible to redirect the road & make a ford crossing over the creek. If enough people get behind a petition or lobby the hell out of the local MP then surely something can be done about it. 5hit its only a poxy bridge. Me think they dont want any one to go in there full stop so the easiest thing for them to do is pull up the bridge. Where there is a will there is a way & people will find a way up there. It is the local fossickers that keep the road clear of tree fall any way & the local fossickers that hassled the hell out of the council to put a grader over the road a wee while ago. Be a damn shame to lose access in to there. I for one cant see it happening....not for long any way.
I went for a dredge back at the spot where I detected the above specimen hoping for more. Took me two hours to get the dredge in place & set up running.

Dredged all day & got 2 grams of shotty Coromandel gold just like the gold in the above post. Before leaving I raked & detected my tailings pile. As the specimen I got the previous time was very rounded & water worn & as there wasnt a lot of weight in gold in it I thought there was every chance that similar pieces could just roll & tumble & dance right down & out of the box & not settle in behind the riffles.
Well my luck was in & I snagged two beaut little speimens. Check these two puppies out.

Here is a few pics of the different sides of one

Close up

And the other one

They brought a smile to my dial

There has to be more of those.

Happy hunting & a prosperous new year to you all

JW

 

[strickman]

nice speci ,jw. keep us posted , fill your poke!

 

[goldtimer]

Yeah the Moonlight Bridge has all of the boarding taken off. Damn DoC, they could replace all the wood in two or three days if they wanted, but they leave it off for the holiday season. At the bridge it's like tent city. About half a dozen people camped there lol

 

[nuggy]

Very nice specimens J W, like spider webs of gold wrapped around the quartz. I have not seen such good ones from NZ before. Had some Reefton ones, but they only showed a speck of gold here and there. I have the December 2010, Aussie Gold Gem and Treasure mag in front of me, the cover shot is a dozen or so really nice Aussie species, yours would not be out of place among them.

Hi Goldtimer, just checked your previous posts, what are you doing up here, poking around our sandfly infested paradise?

Nuggy

 

[Wildcat]

You did well JW. That retirement fund must be looking real good by now.. lol Love your rig too. At the moment we are flooded in, can't get to the local town or city, let alone gold hunting. My tractor is still bogged down the bush. Been there since before Xmas. If it stops raining it will take 2-3 weeks to dry out after that. I'm told it could be April.... This is unreal, rain every day and night constant and heavy. They reckon it rained for 40 days and 40 nights with the biblical flood. I reckon we have had more than 50 days so far with hardly a break. This is at a time of year when we only normally get the odd thunderstorm. WTF is going on? Can you tell I am pis*ed off?
The Cat

 

[nuggy]

Hi Wildcat, Holeee sh*^% just saw pix of Towoomba and flash flood, man thats pretty bad alright, person caught in wrong spot would have no chance. Hope you and yours are ok. Hang in there, Nuggy

 

[goldtimer]

Hi Guys, flood looks pretty bad, hope all you Aussies get through it alright...
Nuggy - I was up the coast on a visiting expedition mainly, caught up with a few family and friends. Unfortunately the weather was pretty unsettled (I was there just after new years) and didn't really get any detecting in. Found a bit of fine stuff with the pan and sluice, but nothing to speak of.....
It was well worth going though, the coast and the people on it are great
Sandflys? The moonlight sandflys look pretty tame when compared to the formidable black monsters at Jackson's bay. Man they're big

 

[kiwi jw]

Hi Guys, It has been a wee while since I have had my detector out. In NZ our gold is usually pretty small & we are lucky to have pretty quiet ground. Hence mono coils are my coil of choice & I will only use a DD if working close to powerlines or an electric fence or EMI is making the mono too noisy. Small gold is better than no gold.
I have recently got back from 7 days detecting down in Central Otago. The only DD I took was the standard 11" coil that came with my detector. The rest were all mono's. I am using a bit of an old detector by todays standards. A GP 3000. The mono's I took were coiltek 6", coiltek 10" X 5", nuggetfinder 12" X 7", minelab 11" commander, minelab 15" X 12" commander, coiltek 18" & coiltek 24" X 12" UFO.
I used the nuggetfinder 12" X 7" & the coiltek 6" to go over some shallow ground just above some old workings that I had gone over the last time I was down there. I managed to get 14 bits with the nugget finder on the first day. They were all sub grammers except two. One at 2.55 grams & one at 1.05 grams. they were all very shallow.
The next day I put on the 24" X 12" UFO coil, my patch finder, to cover new ground more quickly & try to hit on to another patch. Only managed a 1.37 gram bit & a .68 after covering quite a big area. Getting a bit frazzled, as it was quite warm at 40 degrees celcius, I went back to the spot I was on the day before & put on the 6" mono. Managed to get 3 more bits. A 1.09 grammer & 2 sub grammers.
On the third day I used the 24" X 12" UFO again & hit on to a small patch of 8 pieces with it in a small area. Lots of .22 shells from rabbit shooters & lead bullet heads. I started to ignore those type of signals as it was bloody hot & I only started digging those sure sounding soft mellow signals that were usually gold or lead. I then put on the 15" X 12" commander & went over the same ground & got 3 more bits. 2 sub grammers & a little speci that was 1.30 grams. This was the first time I had used this coil & I was gobsmacked at its sensitivity & depth on these small pieces. I like it. Total for that day was 11 bits for 14.05 grams.
The next 3 days I went somewhere else & hit a small creek that had quite a bit of exsposed bed rock. I put on the 6" mono & just targeted the bed rock both in the water & above it. Over the 3 days I got 27 bits, all sub grammers for a total of 5.92 grams.
The next day I went back to the little patch I had found & used the nuggetfinder 12" X 7" & decided to dig up all the loud in your face signals incase they were masking a faint good signal. My first signal was a .22 shell, which I thought it was going to be. The 2nd was also going to be a .22 shell as it was a loud sharp in your face signal......or was it Two scrapes with the pick & it was gone. .22 shell for sure. Scooped up the pile & waved my hand over the coil & WHAM!!!! Then the signal had gone. It fell out of my hand & on to the coil. BLOODY HELL.....a gold nugget that ended up being 8.5 grams. Just goes to show.... dig all signals. No matter what. I also got a .57 gram bit as well.
On my last day I put on the 12" X 15" & used it as my patch finder. Only managed 2 sub grammers. I then whacked on the 10" X 5" joey coil & went in amongst some old shallow workings & managed to squeak out 3 sub grammers. I never used the DD or the 18" mono. I used a hip stick on the 12" x 15" & the 24" X 12" UFO & could swing them all day effortlessly. I love the hip stick. Was detecting in deep/sensitive/fixed/all metal settings mostly with the occasional flick into normal.

The gold to the left is from up on a mountain side & no where near water or a water course. It is all pretty rough & shotty except for a couple of bits. All has some quartz still attached. The gold to the right is the water worn gold from the little creek bedrock. All up 41 grams. The old button was a very faint signal & it was down slightly more than the length of my pick handle which is 600mm. I was using the 15" X 12" commander mono. I was absolutly sure it was going to be gold after getting down to that depth & having found some nice gold very close by on a previous trip . What a bummer to unearth the button after all the time sweet & tears of digging that hole

Close up of the 8.5 grammer with bits of quartz still attached

The old button has what looks like "Victoria Moleskin" written on it. I am guessing the Victoria is Victoria in South Australia & has come off an old timer goldminers mole skin "jeans"

Happy hunting

JW