Going To New Zealand

[Gerry in Idaho]

All you really need is 1 small nugget find to check off the list.

Be sure to take many pics, enjoy the local traditions and live life my friend.

Congratulations on your dream adventure coming together.

[mn90403]

It is about 8AM and I'm waiting for Simon to pick me up for about 6 hours or so of detecting.  This will be it for me.  Tomorrow is a travel day.

Yesterday Simon was the perfect host and showed us a local spot that once had ounces and ounces of gold.  I was told by a local who detected it back in the 80s or so that you could easily get an ounce a day.  There were some undetected spots that yielded more before the SDs came out even and when they had those ... ah the stories and pictures of multi-ouncers.

Simon managed a nice bit, but he'll show it to you when he gets a chance.  My wife and I didn't fare as well but it was fun.

It is hard to take a lot more pictures when you have to give your phone to your kid so you can detect while they play games!  haha

[mn90403]

I'm preparing to leave Queenstown this morning.  I wish that I could report finding my own nugget but I do have some NZ gold courtesy of JW.

Simon and I went out on just a perfect day to a spot just like many others I saw here in the south that once held lots of gold.  Once again we gave it out best effort but came away without a nugget.  We had a great time which could have only been made better by finding a piece.  My big relic of the trip was an unfired 22 long.  We both found dozens of tiny bird shot.

Simon was using his 6000 and I was using my Algo.  While I just started using it this trip I'm finding it to be a very capable detector with the Sadie on it.  More on that later when I get back and meet up with some of you.

This was near where we detected.  It was one example of many that I saw of gold mining activity that took place over the area.  The specific area we detected reminded me of the climate and growth at Rye Patch.  There is just much, much more exposed bedrock and no crystals.

On my return trip to the north along the West Coast of the South Island I'm told this is where the largest nuggets were found.  I did stop by a shop and meet someone who had a 500 gram nugget!  Lots and lots of gold was found and taken but I'm only taking back a little gift.

Thank you Simon and thank you JW.  I'll try to keep some of your secrets safe.  haha

[phrunt]

It was a great visit by Mitchel and his family, very short though, he's so rushed I can see why he's had no chance to put up photos, by very definition it's a whirlwind trip.  We made use of the time we had, unfortunately my wife came down with covid a couple of weeks ago, last weekend JW and I went detecting while my wife had it and I didn't, I even tested myself the morning of our detecting to ensure all would be well and I wouldn't spread it, I came back all clear.  JW found 7 nuggets that trip, I was skunked.  

Fast forward to this weekend and JW is down for the count in bed with Covid, damn it, bad timing! So, he was unable to join us for our adventures, not wanting to spread it to Mitchel and his family while they're on holiday.  I did my best to take Mitchel to spots I hoped he'd come away with a piece or two, places I thought I'd have hope of finding something, but gold is gold, if I knew where it was, I'd have it all already so I just took him to productive areas where I'd found gold.

We also went to the local gold shop, where the guy that runs it is a very experienced detectorist and had been detecting my local area well before even JW came into town, he was telling Mitchel all about the areas we were detecting and how much gold he used to get out of these areas, let's just say Reg Wilson would be happy to detect these spots back then 😛

The shop also has lots of big nuggets found in the local area on display, including a 500 gram nugget found on the West Coast and plenty of large nuggets found locally, even in the river right beside the shop.

Mitchel got some great photos, I was not using my phone much for photos or anything as I'd forgotten to charge it, I plugged it in before taking off but I forgot to plug the other end into the charger plug so it was just plugged into the cable!!! I had to conserve whatever battery I had and I didn't have a charge cable in my car to use while driving.

Either way, I hope Mitchel had a good trip, short but sweet, now he'll know when I do my gold posts what I've been going through to the find the gold and the basic idea of the areas I'd be in, a bulk of the gold I've shown found on this forum has come from the two places he went to including my two biggest nuggets, one from each location and both just over 4 grams.

Mitchel was very kind and used some of his suitcase space to bring me over an F19 from the Fisher fire sale, I got this for my daughter on the odd time she comes up to the ski fields looking for coins and rings after the seasons over.  It's about the only time I can get her to use a detector as it's at her favourite place, the ski fields and her favourite detector is the Gold Bug Pro.  I have some really great Nel coils for the GBP and the Detech Ultimate 13" so the F19 is a good update to give me volume control.

Now the other wonderful thing Mitchel did is bring both JW and I a selection of his finds, we each got a little baggie with some [Place name of them here, I've forgotten] and a meteorite.  As Mitchel likely knows, meteorites are a massive deal in NZ, they're impossible to ever find, and when one hits people go by the hundred in organized groups to try find it, it's something I'll treasure forever.  I can even look like an American now crusing around in my new Santa Monica T-Shirt. 🙂

Day one we went to a place Mitchel had a good chat to the gold shop guy about, we only had the afternoon there with it being such a busy trip.  Its a place my best patch was over 15 grams with the biggest nugget being over 4 grams.

I used the 6000 and my favourite coil on it, the 10x5" Coiltek.  

I managed to get a short little video of the target when I first found it as I was starting to clear the dirt off the bedrock, I knew at this point it was very likely to be gold as it was inside the schist, not on top of it like a bit of junk or pellet would likely be so I walked over and gathered up Mitchel and his wife to come have a look.

As you can see, even my sparkly new F19 would have found this one.

This is after the bedrock was smashed away, Mitchel actually helped doing that as he was using the heavier pick which was better to smash the rock away, his wife I believe filmed the whole thing so he maybe able to put up a proper full video when he gets home.  Took us a while to get it out of the rock.

And this is it.

Close to half a gram, not too bad.

A shame we didn't find any more than this the entire two days, but that's gold for you.  A real shame JW wasn't with us, I think he would have found a few more, he has the special knack.

The next day I went back to old faithful, my GPZ with 8" coil, one of my favourite combos, probably should have used the 15" CC in this big open country area but I'd previously done well at this spot with the 8", probably the combo that's found my most nuggets there, and one of my biggest, a 4.1 gram.

This is the only photo I took yesterday.

It shows all the exposed bedrock Mitchel was talking about.

And here are the videos of my best two days in the area.

These are for you Mitchel, the 8" At the spot we went yesterday.

And the 15" Concentric when the patch was found

They were in the same general area you were in yesterday, walking distance from where we were and I could see where the 4.1 came from while we were there detecting, so you can see why I had hopes we might find some gold around there.  You'll probably recognise the area a bit when the camera moves around 🙂

We stopped in to see JW on the way home, Mitchel got to see JW's gold collection, thousands of bits. 

Anyway, I hope you make it back to this side of the world again Mitchel, and I hope next time you have a lot more time to spend here to give finding some local gold a really good shot, thanks again for coming to meet us.

[mn90403]

We've now driven all day and stopped by a glacier and we're at a Holiday Park in Hokitika.  Thoughts of Queenstown still with me.  I'm going to stop at one or two of the bookstores that are everywhere here and ask them if they have any gold books.

I saw one at JW's that showed the truly large amounts of gold that was found in NZ about the same time Australia and the United States were having their rushes.  I never knew.

Today we passed along the West Coast.  There were some old gold towns here too and the quartz appeared in the streams and rocks.  I tried to eyeball a nugget!  I've got a couple of rock samples and pictures.  

[mn90403]

We've made it to Blenheim for a few hours before we get on the Ferry at Picton in the morning.  On our trip today we found a beach that probably has jade and a mine with my name!  More on that later.

[geof_junk]

You should have a photo with yourself next to the sign.   🤩

[mn90403]

That would have been a bit better but I do have pictures of the inside history and a video walk around.

I'm now on the ferry.

[dig4gold]

See..... You could put up photos of your travels while traveling. Nice. Shame you got no gold detecting but nice of JW to give you a sample to take away with you. Shame he couldn't tag along with you. He would have been a mind/mine of info. Don't suppose you got a photo of his gold, did you ask if you could? 

The Mitchell Gully Mine isn't too far away from where I am.

D4G

[mn90403]

 

9 hours ago, dig4gold said:

The Mitchell Gully Mine isn't too far away from where I am.

D4G

It might have been good to meet you.

I didn't want a picture of the gold I saw because some things need to be shared by the owner only.  I took a picture of some of Justin's finds as it was part of his shop.