Last Hurrah Gold

[1864hatter]

Hi guys and girls, 

My wife is due to give birth to our second child next weekend so I thought I'd squeeze in a quick trip up to the local gold field to find some gold. We'd had a fresh dusting of snow on the higher hills the day before and so my very pregnant wife, daughter and mother in law decided to tag along to try and find some snow. 

We drove up to the same spot I last went to on our claim with my 2yo daughter. I was dropped off at the creek and the ladies continued on up the hill for a snow/picnic adventure. We arranged to meet back at the road in 1.5hrs time. 

The spot I chose has a 1.5m high gravel/clay Bank resting on bedrock. Flooding has exposed the bedrock at the base and on our last trip we were successful in finding gold by removing the remaining material off the bedrock and detecting the nooks and crannies. 

This time I applied the same method and soon found my first piece of perhaps 0.3g. There were some very large worms in some of the gravely clay which were very impressive! Some almost half a meter long! 

So I managed to get 6 pieces for one hours digging and detecting. The largest was 1.6g and the total weight was 3.2g. A perfect quick mission before baby arrives. Alas the ladies didn't find any snow. 

Cheers 

[1864hatter]

Some additional photos of the gold, including close ups of the largest one which I believe shows some remnants of crystal character. Quite rare in Nz 

[1864hatter]

That gold bug is almost 10 years old and still going strong. Have yet to find a way to kill it. 100s of trips under its belt if you include land based relic hunts. 

[1864hatter]

Interesting about the coil covers, I used to get white ones and then later when I got a replacement coil it does not fit the white covers anymore. Not sure what the change was about, no change in performance seemingly. I still really rate the gold bug as a detector despite having seen in action and used a number of other (late model) detectors. Largely due to the local geology and my style of gold digging. 

[1864hatter]

Although I could be persuaded to get an equinox 800😉

[beatup]

Great job detecting

[strick]

Your first picture kinda resembles our rocky mountains here in the states but then you mentioned getting a little snow and I realized you had to be in New Zealand...Nice work on the gold 

strick

[alaskaseeker]

Very nice finds.....

[mn90403]

Those are great finds for an hour.

Are you in the North or South?

[1864hatter]

Thanks for your kind remarks folks, this gold is from the Marlborough region in the South Island of NZ.