Cairns research

Been a while since I had a chance to get out and do some more research on the Cairns area.

Weather was great today so I thought I would go out for a drive.

This time I wanted to check out the Stannary Hills field just out past Dimbulah.

The area is famous for Coffee, Tin and Tobacco.

I had my new friend Chris with me who I met at the last Cairns Coffee Catchup.

He's only just got his fossicking license so I taught him how to pan for gold and what to look for.

We found a great spot on Eureka Creek with plenty of good water flow and spent the day gold panning out in the bush.

I only found one small spec of gold that I needed a 10x magnification Loupe to see. That was all we got all day.

All in all a great day out in the bush.

Now that you have some good reading and maps,
We might have to do some of that research next weekend

thanks for sharing mate great pics

Found this while doing some more research on Cairns:

[video=480,360]http://youtu.be/4sXtjcqV_IA[/video]

Top find there grant, always facinating how cities and lifestyles change over time. Should take some more photos of cairns today and hang onto them for the next 40 years to see what else changes...

Ever onward in my quest for Gold I decided to go for a walk up the Walsh River today outside of Dimbulah in Far North Queensland, she was a bit dry the old river:



Did a bit of dry panning and found black sands but no gold, still its a good sign:




Heres an example of what power a flood can have, thats a different type of tree stuck up there in the old gum tree:


Heres an example of a natural riffle, note the build up of sand at the base of the old tree, then look behind it, see the rock pile build up:


Heres the rock pile behind the tree, spent a bit of time looking through these, lots of rat eaten quartz with iron through it, good sign:


Found some water in the Walsh River after all:



Spent a bit of time wet panning and found black sands. Only found a couple of really tiny flour gold specs in amongst it with my 10x magnification jewellers loupe:


Anyway I found gold (albeit flour / powder gold) and it was a great day out in the bush.

unreal looking spot there Grant, it looks like a decent amount of colours in your pan even if it is flour gold.

Is that inland or do you still have to keep an eye out for the salties in the water?

cheers

Hi MJB,

Photo must be deceptive, there is no colour in that pan, just black and blond sand. Only one of my pans for the day had colour and that was only a couple of really tiny specs.

No its inland to the west and freshwater. No Crocs but did see a roo or twelve amongst the bush though.

Cheers,

Grant

Ok..I thought all that lighter stuff was flour gold and I thought thats the best looking pan I had seen in yonks

Cheers

Nice pics mate. Are there crocs around Cairns??
If not i'd love to camp at that creek.

Jumping in here a bit late. there is big salties right up in the fresh at goldsborough. On another note ive come across some old mining equipment apparently from mareeba mine will post pics tomorrow. No one really knows who it belongs to its not the historic museums. Hopefully I find a home for it.

Jaros said:

Nice pics mate. Are there crocs around Cairns??
If not i'd love to camp at that creek.

Click to expand...

I noticed a lot of camp fires on one side of the bridge where there was enough access to get a few cars in there. Seems like a popular spot with the backpackers.

There are plenty of crocs about at the moment as its breeding season and they are on the move. My mates in a fishing forum and he told me about a 4 metre salty they were watching sunning itself on the beach. As they got closer it slipped into the water and they didn't see it again. 8)

Here's a shot of the largest one they have in captivity up here. Apparently there are bigger ones out in the wild.

bushpig said:

Jumping in here a bit late. there is big salties right up in the fresh at goldsborough. On another note ive come across some old mining equipment apparently from mareeba mine will post pics tomorrow. No one really knows who it belongs to its not the historic museums. Hopefully I find a home for it.

Click to expand...

Would love to see the pics of the old timers equipment I have a real interest in all the old equipment. If you ever get to Gympie go and check out their gold museum its full of all the old equipment used by the miners. Include a large stamper with the multiple sluices attached.

Thought so. When i saw the pics of you walking up that creek instantly thought about the ACHTUNG signs all over the place up there.

Strangely I didn't see any of the achtung signs on the area of the Walsh river I was on but I always try to stay where the water is running fast and never near large still pools of water. Always on the lookout just in case though.

Ive been hearing reports of salties up the mulgrave too, seems strange to me as they are ambush predators and the mulgrave is so clear you can watch the jungle perch swimming around from a few metres away. You usually only see the occasional freshie up there which will leave you alone unless youre near their nest.

Theyd have a mighty long way to travel too, at least 20ks or so over sandbanks and causeways past numerous swimming holes to get to the upper mulgrave.

Im just saying it seems unlikely that a salty would make a journey like that unless it was forced out of its turf by rivals or because of lack of food.

I go to the mulgrave quite a bit and have not seen any sighn of crocs. The water level is dropping up there and the water is starting to warm up but it is still bloody cold.
They might make it that far up but it would need to warm up a bit more I reckon

Pappy1111

I was the same I didnt believe it when my missus and father inlaw told me about it and to stop swimming the dogs up there.
Then a couple of cops came and said gday once when I was there and told me of a 3.5 metre croc they saw that day in the same spot.
I believe it was also in the cairns post many years ago.