Continuing on with the excursion in New Zealand………
Proceeded to Moonlight Creek about 25km north east of Greymouth near Blackball village. Last 6 km after "Andersons Flat "were on a narrow and winding dirt road which was well enough maintained for travel to be comfortable. The last stage to get to the panning area however, involved a 1.5 km hike to the creek. A pleasant enough walk though a bit tiring and time consuming which eventually culminated with crossing the creek of interest using a one-person-at-a-time narrow swing bridge. Negotiated that and found a way down to the creek. Didn’t take long to find a trace of colour. The creek was running fairly high and the rocks were a touch slippery so just persisted with the original spot (picture) without wider scouting. Given more time and less attention from the sand flies (first time they were a significant nuisance in NZ) and less threat of rain, probably could have found a better patch without too much trouble. After a couple of hours, noticed that two other fossickers had arrived and were sluicing on a large gravel shoal further upstream on the other side of the bridge.
On the way back stopped at the “famous” Blackball pub for a beer as suggested by Barry. A pleasant and atmospheric typical country pub which once had been grandly named the “Blackball Hilton”. Apparently the Hilton Corporation got wind of this eventually and in the early 90’s sent them a stiff letter threatening various forms of punitive action (picture attached of the original letter hanging on the wall of the pub). Apparently they promptly changed their name to “Formerly the
Blackball Hilton” (picture attached) and the threats were dropped.
Chatted for a bit with the bartender since there were few customers that time of day. Turned out he did a bit fossicking himself from time to time though more so in the past. Interestingly, he said that the gold was better at Andersons Flat “just below the designated area” (!) and showed me where he meant on an older map. It turned out that the designated fossicking area had been moved from near Andersons Flat to its present position. Had I known this, I could have saved some time and effort by making my way to Moonlight Creek somewhere near Andersons Flat conveniently avoiding the narrow road and the 1.5km trek!
More soon….
