Recent content by Diggerdom

Just to clarify, you can use a pump to move water into your sluice and shovel the gravel into the sluice. You cannot use a pump to move the gravel to the sluice, which, as thesmithy says, would be dredging, not sluicing. A miners right permits only the use of hand tools to move the gravel etc...

I can clarify a couple of things about the use of cyanide for you. It was usually used in specially constructed concrete vats, mainly for treating crushed quartz from reef mining. I have not heard of it being used in puddlers, which are used for liberating alluvial gold from clay. Cyanide in...

The 'silvery' gold is most likely mercury coated - not uncommon to find it like this due to the common use of mercury to trap and amalgamate gold during the 1800's and early 1900's.

Great video. Nicely built gear too.

Hmmm...dust mask essential I should think

I'm gonna have to have a crack at that beach detecting one day!

One of the affected streams will be Reedy Creek from Woolshed to Eldorado. When this area changed from being state forest to national park, there was a great deal of lobbying and consultation with local communities and users of the area. As a consequence, when the national park was declared, it...

Nice to find gold and fossils in the same spot. Cool!

Good haul! I don't expect you to give away your spot, but at least let on whether it's a park or beach or otherwise?

Love the bread crate sluice - great idea!

Great Pics HTW. Thanks for the links too Loamer. There are a few local mines I want to explore, but I'm going to get an O2/CO2 monitor first. They go a fair way in and the air quality is a but sus.

Hi Matt, you recall correctly, the Wallaby mine is in Stanley, just out of Beechworth and you pass through Silver Creek on the way there from Beechworth. It was a gold mine, quite rich in places and one of a series of important gold mines along a highly mineralised area. There are many other...

Interesting the way places change their names and old locality names fade away. I can shed some light on the Reedy Creek name. A big chunk of the gold field from Eldorado to Wooragee and including Beechworth, lay on the Carraragarmungee run (don't try saying that fast after a few beers). The...

I've been a keen amateur prospector since I moved to Eldorado in North East Victoria when I was twelve. Moved around a bit since, but 35 years later I'm now back in the area and living in Stanley, near Beechworth. Not much in the way of big nuggets here, but fine gold abounds if you put the work...