New Zealand Gold Fossicking Forums

Hello everyone!

I'm Jeff and for years I've wanted to go find something shiny in the ground.

Ever since my folks took me to Arrowtown as a kid the itch has been gnawing away at me, and I just can't stant it any longer hahaha!!

I'm in west auckland so I'm thinking of talking to DOC in Thames to see if I can go scratching about anywhere closeby, otherwise I'll be saving up me coins for a holiday, probably to Ross, or Lyell near Murchison :)

Welcome Jeff and hope you get heaps from this forum and from contact with like minded people.

I am quizzical why you say Ross or Lyell as being places that you would like to go - I have been to both but think that you really need a little sympathetic local knowledge to find something really worth while. I always found the schist country of Otago more lucrative but then again I am used to Otago conditions and the lie of the land. There are also many kind hearted fossickers and gold seekers down here who would be willing to show you the ropes and to take you out so that you got something, hopefully worthwhile to take home to the far North. In saying that I also know that there are also lots of decent guys across the main divide on the West Coast who will assuredly set you right should you decide to head that way.

If you do get down I would thoroughly recommend no fleeting visit but rather a few weeks - do both Central Otago and the West Coast...I have found that Arrowtown is always a place where you can be guaranteed of colours with the chance of finding more.

Yes I like tents as well and have a wee not so secret spot about 1k from the Lyell where I pitch my tent - the reason a secret spot is so that we, being a member of the opposite sex and I have a bit of privacy and not because the gold is better!

I think it is far better befriending some of the active gold mining members and meeting up with them so that they can take you to places other than the public fossicking areas. Last Saturday I met an Auckland member and his girlfriend and took them to my place and they left with an open invite to come any time they wish - such was their friendliness and personalities.

I note that many of the forum members know each other personally having met and gone fossicking one as the guest of another - the moral of the story is to keep in touch with members, build a good rapport with them rather than cross them as some have done me and the worlds your oyster...go get gold. I am at the stage in life where it doesnt matter if I get much or not so have no hesitation taking others to try their luck providing they are decent people who in turn would assist or help others.

As for the public fossicking areas - last time I was at Slab Hut creek camping I got maliciously assaulted by a squadron of vermicious wasps after I tried to plug the entrance to their nest so I could work beside it without getting attacked and the same thing happened in another fossicking area so I have a faint suspicion that the government have wasps patrolling the fossicking spot to deter Kiwis from fossicking full stop! As for Slab Hut creek the day ended up devoted to open warfare between me and the wasps and Im still alive...I used to like the smell of petrol as a youngster but wasps dont.

Hi Jeff and welcome.
It's true there is Soooo much information on here from people that have been into the hobby for years that it makes us newbies wonder if we can ever gain that much knowledge.

Read as much as you can and absorb as much as possible (it's not that easy).

There are a number of masters here that may be willing to be your guru.

I was out and about yesterday and Lammerlaw came over to say g'day had a good yarn (well he did most of the talking and I tried to learn as much as I could) and he even lent me some of his gear.
You will quickly learn who knows there stuff (you could put a recorder next to Lammerlaw and still be getting good info 2 hours later). The others who spin stories, still listen because you never know when you might meet someone who fills in the blanks or backs someone elses story up.
In the last few days while out with my detector I've been approached by a number of people and all were nice positive people.

Best of luck and you're off to a good start by being here!

Welcome. I'll cya when yah get down here :)

Good advice from Kiwikeith regarding Reefton over Ross - strangely enough a friend who is into gold mining, my son and I were just perving the sites around reefton on Google Earth today. I worked over thataway once in the days of the NZFS and had planned to go back to do some serious prospecting but never made it though made three passing visits in the last ten years.

Now the first two times I was over there I tried to get my yuppymobile - a Toyota Surf up the Big River Road but the road was too rough for it and I had a full load of camping gear aboard so didnt take any risks that might have left me up a creek without a paddle and I dont think Insurance companies roadside rescue extends to out of the way places. Now I have to admit that I didnt find any gold BUT....

I have here a map of a creek given to me in the mid 1970s by an old chap who had worked over there and he said there was really good gold in a creek up thataway but for the life of me I cant find the map. I also saw some great gold that another fellow found somewhere between Reefton and Big River.

I also remember a bloke used to go up into the forest at Totara Flat in the late 1960s when I was there and come back with half an ounce after work which I think he donated to the Reeftons Working Mens Club or some similar organisation for their raffle on, I think, Friday nights.. - though I am not certain about these details as I was never there.

Yessir I think around Reefton is well worthy of poking about but one warning - I felt a bit intimidated by a number of Sleezeballs parked on the side of the road away up the Big River track - Easter time - sort of about the time the farmers are finishing their harvest...need I say more! I was also shadowed when I took my family up into the forest at Granville Terrace to show them where I worked. A bloke who looked like the King of Scumsuckers shadowed us and parked a hundred yards or so down the road when ever we parked and when we went to look at likely spots he would get out of his car and go into the bush down the road, Assumedly to keep an eye on us and what we found...not gold! The odd squarish burnt spot on the side of the road with glass fragments and the one remaining burnt out car were not indicators that cars in the area had tendencies to suffer short circuits either. It all comes down to simple mathematics, Scumsucker + Burnt out cars = Nefarious activities. Its a great pity really as it was a grand place back when I worked there with fantastic people, the Heather Bell Hotel where the only beer sold was Westbrew.

To digress a bit I have just remembered my first night at Totara Flat - I went to the pub and asked for DB "We havent got it" so I asked for Waikato Brew 22 and he looked at me as though I had escaped from somewhere "Havent got it" so I asked for Speights "Havent got it - By this time my brains getting a hernia trying to think of something else but finally I asked for I think it was Harleys of Nelson but got the same answer "Havent got it" - well by this time I was beginning to think that maybe it was an ice cream parlour in disguise but none the less asked what did he have "Westbrew" - I had never heard of it but in the end had to develop a taste for it or go teetotal. I remember their Westbrew Stout. Some shit took the first bottle I ever bought, gave me a wicked grin and tapped the bottom of the bottle with a coin and it erupted...quite spectacular except that I paid for it. I got him back by piddling all over the bonnet of his car...that was forty years ago and I had forgotten all that until now! Great country and good people once.

hi there heading for the claim sun morning sould hit the carpark at marble hill round 9 so if you want a ride flag me down
my wife and i just going for the day
driving a landrover discovery with a trailer with dredge on it cant miss us
most welcome