Thoroughness of old timers

[TheWolf]

I find this pic online somewhere. Yeah, I know its only a painting, but assuming its depicting the actual scene at the time...

1. Maximum respect! Thats a lot of digging with hand tools!
2. I havent been to that particular spot - what does it look like today? How well has the river banks recovered in 150 years?
3. At least I know why its getting harder and harder to find that yellow stuff!
4. Interesting to see them tunnelling into the inside of the banks there...

Cheers,
Mike

 

[Jaros]

Would look nice on my lounge room wall. Wonder what the Mrs. would think??

 

[AussieChris]

Plenty of old evidence of workings up on the Turon, of course, nature has its own way of restoring most of it until you step into a nasty old hole! or come across a big field of split open bedrock, they certainly were industrious. Andy @AdventureGold has a great vid of "Chinamen's Rock" at Trunkey Creek where the Chinese worker's hand cut a channel through a basalt flow. A curiosity I often find in the area that hints to the past is mercury coated gold, they must have used so much of the stuff up there.

[video=480,360]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rC65zCFaWv8[/video]

This is Sheep Station Point today....from the painting in 1853, can still see plenty of evidence of workings.

 

[Matt80]

It certainly looks like a great spot for the gold to drop so l can see why they were so thorough there, but how much evidence of diggings can u still see below the flood level? No surprise there is still plenty to see and lm sure artifacts to be found above flood level, but l can't personally see much other than a normal River bend below it.

 

[AussieChris]

164 years since that painting, let's say the river floods like this every 5 years and every 10 an even bigger one, then the one in fifty and one in a hundred.......those workings down beside the river are long gone and redeposited. I have worked that area, you can throw a rock at it from Sofala it's that close.

Before the last big flood, I was working some boulders that had been tossed around, they were wedged in a pretty interesting spot and had gathered some really nice colour, when the flood receded they were gone, only in the low water did I find they were at least 75m downriver, once again holding good colour in behind them, DIY bathoscope, mask and snorkel, crevice sucker and even handfuls of gravel into a bucket......

Just be mindful crossing private property to get to the river. If it rains as much as suggested this weekend, could be a good flow in the river come mid next week. I'm gonna go nuts if I don't see some colour this weekend though! Only so much Netflix or episodes of Yukon Gold I can handle.

[video=480,360]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xffrEdtpdP8[/video]

 

[Matt80]

So the idea of fossickers ruining rivers and creeks digging a few holes in alluvial deposits.... Yeah...

 

[AussieChris]

So the idea of fossickers ruining rivers and creeks digging a few holes in alluvial deposits.... Yeah...

They need to justify themselves mate, a bunch of muesli and yoghurt eating, cafe latte sipping political think tankers most likely got a million dollar grant to tell us all that moving a few buckets of gravel ten feet and washing it could cause a butterfly effect and bring down the whole ecosystem.

 

[mudgee hunter]

I agree Chris. One thing or two things to take into account of the early days on the diggings, is imagine your at a newly well paying location, and your raking in payable gold. Using primative methods and every day your seeing droves of people RUSHing to dig near you, so what do you do... RUSH. Bugga the flower gold! Go the rough stuff. Legend had it at Hargraves,( then louisa) that up to 19grms to the dish for the first claimers there. Its only a tiny creek with little flow if any. Then it became shoulder to shoulder in that creek turning the creek to clay syrup. So much so that one could hardly pan in it. So a lot of the gold was lost into the creek. Once you have a few thousand people cradling into the creek, your not going to be digging into others tailings back then. Yes they got the cream, but there was eventually floods to wash the millions of tonnes of dirt that was tipped into the louisa. Leaving behind some nice gold to found that was missed and lost by the rush era's.
Cutting down every tree in their way and turning the place upside down helped depositing more missed gold up the banks with rain, erosion and time.
But this kind undertakings I doubt will ever occur again by independent people. And I cannot fathom how anyone can fear the same again. Unless the gold price went through the roof all the way to the moon. Total lack of understanding on their behalf. And killing a dream for us, that Australia was partly built upon.

 

[RM Outback]

Great post MH :Y: You nailed it. I hope the Muesli and Yoghurt eating, Cafe Latte sipping Political think tankers ( :Y: good one AC) with Green Eyes read this post. Clear honest and to the point info mm might hurt their head for a while.

 

[aussiefarmer]

Wombatsdo more damage than we ever would high banking ! , and the way wires has dropped them off in areas that they never were is criminal!!

 

[mudgee hunter]

Like tunneling under roads! Gee they can make a mess. Funny buggars. Yep the do gooders doing more harm than good. But been on many a creek bed, and they can dig right into the bank deep 4 u. Great little test hole guys I say, till you hit one on the road! 10 a week I see out here!

 

[Mungoman]

Until recently I was a Goulburn lad (moved out Dubbo way) who liked to head out to Grabben Gullen and pan for zircons and sapphire. I've known GG for decades and have watched its non recovery over the last few years.

It depends on the creek/river, the areas rainfall, it's soil, and the flogging that certain areas get with the equipment that's used.

I watched the creek bed get shifted, saw the banks get undercut and holes not filled to the point where I couldn't recognise the creek anymore.

In some places where it doesn't flood like the Turon, the damage done, unless backfilled at the time is permanent.

Your having a lend of yourself if you reckon that all those people who show concern for a local watercourse are green, latte sipping, muesli munching think tankers on a government stipend. Some of us have worked with that soil in that area, have gone to Uni or TAFE to learn to utilise the soil better, and have grown older with that land and know its capabilities.

And it pisses us off no end when three or four highbankers come in, set up on the bank, then dig like buggery for a day or two each long weekend, not bothering to backfill before they go, leaving hillocks of river pebble and stone in the bed of the creek, expecting that nature will do the repairing.

In certain areas with rain shadows that doesn't happen.

So, if you're heading out for a long weekend with the boys, know where you're going - know stuff like the local isohyet, if the soil is sodolic, or if the creek/river has fauna like platypus or cod in it. It would be much appreciated.

 

[madtuna]

excellent post MM! :Y:

 

[user 7268]

Sadly there are many that rape pillage and plunder the land as if it's their god given right to do so I don't know anything about isohyet or sodolic but just run by the rule of leave no footprint Sadly the more the remote areas are opened up the more footprints one sees :/
It doesn't need to be holes dug or rubbish left to bugger the bush Don't know how many I have tried to politely educate regards vegetable matter only to be told it's ok the birds eat it :N:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1v_E1d-dWqM

 

[madtuna]

yep, one well known prospector left a rather big hole open and when questioned why he didn't fill it back in he replied "we do in Vic but don't worry here in WA"

We have arguably one of the best systems in Australia that allows you so much ground and freedom to prospect...the 40E permit system. So many people either don't use it and detect illegally or abuse the system the many mining companies are now not taking EL's but are taking P's instead.

 

[RM Outback]

"P's" is that Pastrol leases or something else, sorry never heard the term.

 

[madtuna]

ML = Mining lease
EL = Exploration lease
P = prospecting licence

You can get a 40E permit on an EL but need written permission on a P.
On a P they can just say no.

 

[Jaros]

Thanks MT. :Y:

 

[AussieChris]

Mungoman don't worry mate I am with you there and didn't mean to offend you if you are a farmer? Farmer's know more about water issues in Australia than the desk jockey's in parliament.

I have seen the less desirables take the scorched earth approach to prospecting, reckless rape, pillage and plunder like Bogger suggested. And yes I totally agree it's intensified in intermittent and ephemeral streams where the outcome is severe and accentuated. Along the lines of Grabben Gullen with undercut banks and piles and piles of washed gravel and holes you would lose a small child in. Unfortunately, Grabben Gullen draws them in like its the Patpong Road or Kuta Beach of fossicking.

I was there last summer and watched 2 above the law idiots casually using one of those petrol pressure washers that pump out something like 4800 psi as a water monitor, cutting right into the banks and moving so much material they were bucketing and shovelling it into wheelbarrows with makeshift screens. After a bit of "Oi you can't do that! and then being told where I could go and where I could shove my rules" all I could do was notify the Crookwell Police station, unfortunately, I don't think it even registered to them.

Or more recently some hillbillies guarding a 4" pontoon dredge with pig dogs and shotguns closer to home, absolute terrorists.

Because there is no natural rehabilitation from those 1 in 10 or more floods in some of our small streams/creeks or because of pure greed no attempt by those who perpetrate to backfill and clean up their mess and rubbish it leads to intensified erosion stemming from greed and yes most of the time the effects will not naturally repair and are compounded over time these places end up looking like the moon unfortunately.

At the start of the post I was focussing entirely towards the Turon because of the painting from 1853. It's a place that I love and it's where I spend most of my time prospecting and I'm sorry if it was narrow-mindedness on my behalf, because I get frustrated when I'm told that somehow my actions as a prospector can affect a river that floods the way it does, tossing trees and boulders along its course like they were made of lego.

People that do the right thing are often lumped together with those that don't when it comes to environmental issues. However it feels like there is never any consultation from the people who put the laws into place and those that enforce them with the people getting shut out of their hobby/passion.....fossickers/prospectors could be a problem......ok shut them down, leaving groups like NAPFA having to always start on the backburner when acting as a voice for us as a community.

Anyway, I'll just keep doing my best to do the right thing, pick up other peoples rubbish and backfill holes that warrant some attention, try and leave any spot I work in better condition than when I got there.

 

[Studog]

sheesh. If you want a pristine environment dont mine.

Mungo only knows his particular spot for "decades". His so called "time period" doesnt equate to forever. In fact it doesnt equate to anything other than a memory. How long did it take to make gold? What events do you think transpired to make it? Dont you think the land changed a bit in between?

Im well past tired of people thinking that the land the way they have seen it during their lifetime is the way it was to year dot and therefore must be maintained thus. What utter easily provable bollocks.

Proof? Just look at the painting above and the photo satellite photo now. Now ask yourself what the sheepstation looked like when gold was forming. Land changes.....with or without man.