Western Vic GOLD

A short while ago a read in a copy of GG&T of one fellas finds with gold in the Western reaches of Victoria. The area he mentioned was north of Casterton and up to Balmoral with a few places in between. Being a lot closer to home than the more famous goldfields I naturally set out to try and find some of the gold he mentioned. Several months ago myself and Kman went out to Mathers creek near Pigeon ponds and spent the day panning and sampling. We found a very wide, slow moving creek that was quite shallow. On the steep sides and banks sloping down to the creek we found one gully that to me looked like it had been Hydraulically sluiced and you could see the decomposed granite at the bottom. I took plenty of samples and panned them but had nothing to show for our efforts. There are old goldmines here but are on private property so as yet we have not been there.

Another spot mentioned is Steep bank Rivulet heading East from the little town of Dergholm. It was mentioned that gold can be panned here in small quantities. I went there today with the kids and with plenty of water still flowing, set up the mini sluice and shovelled for a while. The clean up at the end showed very little but some black sand and nothing else. The spot had exposed layers of ancient wash and I sampled from all these still with no return. With most of this land locked up with private property its difficult to get access along this stream with very steep sides.

So after a few fruitless attempts I have just about called it quits on finding any decent gold this (west) side of the Grampians and from now on I will focus my efforts on Ararat and Beaufort also.

Has any one else had any luck or even heard of any stories of gold in this western region of Vic?

Cheers

Id be looking to see where the deep leads are mate and if theres none out there then potentially theres no new gold being deposited. Unlike the golden triangle which has thousands of kilometers of deep leads depositing gold all year round.

Did you have a look at trove?

If it helps at all I've been multiple times to a set of diggings that produced over (according to mining records) 800 ozs in the 30s and got next to nothing. I'm watching with interest whatever comes out of this thread, interesting to hear about other areas.

Bugger mjb I was hoping that little spot would show some color. did you get anything at all? I might know one other spot near bye to hit

just doing a little research on casterton MJB and read that Tom Cue was from there the bloke they names Cue after (http://www.swvic.org/casterton/cue_tom.htm) interesting read.

there was mention from a bloke who heard about gold being found up Fetherstonhaugh Rd in between Coleraine and Casterton there was also a rush at Dergholm so I would expect that potentially gold was coming down in the Glenelg river which feeds into macpherson and sawyers creeks.

Very interesting read on Tom Cue.

There is a mineralized area near dergholm but I cannot find any reference about gold being found there. There was a silver/galena mine near there but was of insufficient grade to be profitable. Steep Bank has big chunks of mineralized looking quartz throughout but nothing has any gold in it. I'm sure there are deposits somewhere but you would need to spend alot of time in the field traversing the countryside sampling which is near on impossible with all of it being private property.

There is mention of a goldmine at Dunrobin just outside of Casterton and when driving past you can see huge piles of dirt/sand in the paddocks. Whether this is from the mine or from building a dam its hard to say, regardless the Glenelg river is on the exempt list and as this is where the mine was its a no go!

I have read somewhere also about gold being found up Featherstonaugh rd between Casterton and Coleraine and this is the only area I have not tried. Maybe I will give this a go and if I still return empty handed I will give it a miss from now on. Its a shame really as it would have been great to find some colour closer to home.

Cheers

mate i'm sure if you spend the time you will find it, my logic is a man from there was able to make himself very wealthy elsewhere.. but where did he get his loaming skills? surely as a boy.

Sorry to bring up an old thread. But gold has been found in the Glenelg. Very small. But has been found. Only thing is no one knows where its come from. And it was apparently one nugget. Im done a lil look around the river but never found any signs.

I explored all that region extensively years ago with completely negative results using modern (company) geochemical techniques - Mathers Creek, Balmoral, Dergholm etc. Don't know where that 800 oz figure came from - 40 oz more like (mostly Balmoral-Englefield). The only systematic working was east of Balmoral towards Glenisla and the Black Range, although production would have been insignificant (it is the sole area where you can still see old alluvial dumps from workings on high-level gravels). For recreational purposes it is worth driving to east of the Grampians, you will get very bored farther west. There was a diamond found around Kongbool, but the gold and diamonds are likely transported there by glacial action from distant sources.