Reedy Creek Victoria information and questions

[moeee]

More Power to you and your family 1968falconxt.

I live many hours drive away from Reedy Creek and surely the first step in considering an outing there would be to understand the legal implications.
i ask the question because I also have had no success researching the Government web sites.

And Light-hearted spamming hurts members feelings as well as ruining the thread.
i much prefer that nobody at all respond than a member just post misinformation.
Opinions are fine , but they are like backsides , everyone has one.
But LAWS are Laws or they ain't.
The best way of not breaking laws is to know what they are.

 

[user 4386]

I actually thought he has asked a legitimate question, and it is not very clear where one can and cannot prospect in creeks/rivers. I have been researching Reedy creek over the past week with no success.

I have not seen the OP's other posts/threads, but there seems to be a common trend at the moment on this forum with some members spamming threads in a bullying type of way. Light-hearted or not, it ruins the threads

I agree - the hostile response to what seems a reasonable question is perplexing. Even if there were issues elsewhere, it has no relevance to this.

 

[MJB]

Gday Moeee,
Reedy creek, although being in a national Park in parts is open to prospecting. I can't help with web sites but if in Beechworth take the time to go to the information centre across the road from the court house Ned Kelly was tried in and ask them. They have very clear maps on exactly where you can and can't prospect in Reedy creek and the surrounding area. Best of luck with it!

1968Falconxt, Reedy creek can be hit and miss and the trick is to find a small pocket that the old timers missed or that has been replenished over the years. Gold was so prolific there that it should be everywhere. Scratch in between some cracks in the bedrock and you should get at least some colour. I managed to sluice 1 gram in about 4 hrs there right in the middle of the creek on an inside bend....there was more gold in the top 3 inches of gravel than 1 foot down. Keep trying!

 

[moeee]

I managed to sluice 1 gram in about 4 hrs there right in the middle of the creek on an inside bend....!

i recall when I first went out panning and was armed with all the knowledge re inside bends and such , but shock horror , when I arrived , the river bore no resemblance to the theory.
The river looked as though some evil God had eaten it up and spat it back out.
heavy handed prospectors had simply altered the way the text books say the river should look like , and it was impossible to find natural lines of deposits.
This is due to lack of flooding on these particular creeks.

i am unaware of lack of flooding being an issue with Reedy creek or the spot where you were successful MJB , but I figure your success in the middle of the stream was due to a patch where the creek was not thrashed.
That is now my modus operandi in the creeks I frequent - don't worry about what you learned , just try to find a spot where nobody has dug.
More likely to find gold there than digging inside bends of tailings that have been run countless times.

 

[MJB]

Yep, the old timers diverted the flow of Reedy creek many times along its length to get at fresh ground. I have heard that if you find a reddish brown type layer that it holds gold. My experience was in loose river gravel in the water and the only obstacle to stop people digging it was on small log fallen over the creek....it was too hard for everyone else to cross so they just thrashed the already flogged spot. This was all within 10 metres of where I parked my car too so you don't have to go trekking through the scrub too much. Another spot is to find cracks in the bedrock (granite) and look for hard packed gravels in the crevices and rocks....find hard pack and darker material and you should see colour smiling back at you :Y:

 

[Goldtarget]

I can answer the question.
I'll keep it as simple as I can.
As the creek is on a National Park the landholders can manage the resources as it sees fit. This overides the exempt list.
Access is granted as long as the prospector obtains and follows the rules set out in miners right in Victoria.

Pretty simple.

As for the exempt l8st that's a whole other conversation.

Reedy creek gold is glacial gold, as far as I'm aware no other deposit occurs 8n the same manner in Victoria.

 

[moeee]

As the creek is on a National Park the landholders can manage the resources as it sees fit. This overides the exempt list.

so from what i have seen , I guess the river is 100 kilometres long , well real long anyway , and what you are saying is that only the section of the creek in that particular national park is legal to prospect.

in future , I shall navigate national Park information on other rivers that are on the Exempt list.
Like Sutherland Creek down at Stieglitz is not even on the exempt list , yet national parks have it as being prohibitted from prospecting except for a small 400 metre section.

Wouldn't it be great to have a government website that simply had the answers.

 

[Matt80]

I thought all national parks were a no go zone for prospecting and what your talking about sounds like state forest to me, but by all means correct me if lm wrong, I'm in Qld so could be very different up here.

 

[Smoky bandit]

I thought all national parks were a no go zone for prospecting and what your talking about sounds like state forest to me, but by all means correct me if lm wrong, I'm in Qld so could be very different up here.

Na different laws down there mate..
We cant do much at all...and nowhere much to do it :N:

 

[user 4386]

Reedy creek gold is glacial gold, as far as I'm aware no other deposit occurs 8n the same manner in Victoria.

Unsure why you say this. There are glacial deposits around Beechworth, and alluvial diamonds in the area are probably derived from them, but there is no reason to suppose that the gold is related to them. The gold is fairly clearly locally derived from quartz veins in the Ordovician rocks of the area, from which it can be traced continuously. The tin of the area is from a different source again, the Devonian granite. A stream that flows over all three will happily concentrate alluvial deposits of all three.

 

[Goldtarget]

Goldierocks; I'm no expert mate and for all I know you may be correct. Perhaps this is one of those regional legends that gets perpetually handed over but has no basis in fact?

As for a website, well that would be handy but yeah i guess trying to put all the specific info in one place with public money isnt high on the agenda so it doesn't exist. It's a patchwork situation and my guess is it will become more complex as time goes on rather than less.

There are a few NPs in Victoria that allow prospecting in designated areas, Mt Pilot being one of them. I can understand why it's a surprise to some but the state was built on gold so the areas are usually areas that in the past have been heavily worked. Victoria really did have some massive tracks of land upturned during and post gold rush.

There are other areas on the exempt list that are actually worked quite regularly, often local tourism encourages prospecting in areas that are clearly stated as being no go zones, particularly evident in the Alpine and Golden Triangle areas. So it is, pardon the pun, a bit of a minefield, seemingly some areas are actively patrolled and rules enforced, and others almost never. Personally I prefer it this way as it appears to me even in clear cut cases there appears to be no underlying or overarching understanding of what is and is not a no go zone.

As far as I'm aware Noone has been convicted or fined in breach of occupation.

As always though I encourage everyone to be aware of their responsibilities in any area they prospect in.

 

[user 4386]

Probably relates to the old Geological Survey Victoria geologists writing a lot about the diamonds that occur in the same wash as the gold being derived from glacials (which is probably correct) - they wrote a Bulletin on Wooragee - and the miners then assumed the same source for the gold. However you can follow the alluvial gold upstream to the quartz veins that shed the gold (literally right up to them), and the alluvial gold is sometimes attached to bismuth minerals (something not common in Victoria), and so is the gold in the quartz veins upstream (bismuthinite). So it is pretty good evidence. I held an EL over the area and explored it years ago.... Diamonds and gold never occur in the same source rock.

Diamonds are common in glacials and are transported great distances that way (although it is true that this can also occur with gold - eg South Island NZ). Beechworth produced hundreds of carats, and was the only significant diamond producer in Victoria. A similar origin is likely for isolated diamonds elsewhere in Victoria (eg Kongbool north of Hamilton).

 

[Matt80]

I still find it interesting that politicians can claim ignorance of the law when they are pretty clearly written and get away with it for the most part, but the rest of us are expected to abide by a muddled up mess of conflicting laws without the help of lawyers on hand or risk heavy fines. Then again they are the buggers that write them so no real surprise they rigged the game in their favour.

The worst thing is the effect lack of clarity has on tourism, small towns and people just out to enjoy an honest hobby. Our government should be ashamed of how they treat hobbies/occupations like ours. We are wrapped up in far larger departments that don't care about our small groups like ours and l think that's the main thing that needs to change, fossicking should come under tourism not mines.

 

[user 4386]

I still find it interesting that politicians can claim ignorance of the law when they are pretty clearly written and get away with it for the most part, but the rest of us are expected to abide by a muddled up mess of conflicting laws without the help of lawyers on hand or risk heavy fines. Then again they are the buggers that write them so no real surprise they rigged the game in their favour.

The worst thing is the effect lack of clarity has on tourism, small towns and people just out to enjoy an honest hobby. Our government should be ashamed of how they treat hobbies/occupations like ours. We are wrapped up in far larger departments that don't care about our small groups like ours and l think that's the main thing that needs to change, fossicking should come under tourism not mines.

A minor point - not everyone out there with a detector is pursuing a hobby, nor are they digging little holes but using light earth-moving material (quite a few people are making a living, although mostly an average one). So it is a bit difficult to draw the line between the two types of activity, and exploration companies sometimes depend on those with the detectors making the initial discovery (e.g. companies in the Pilbara are using drones to map out past detector scrapings to focus their exploration activities for large ore bodies).

I suspect if it were placed under tourism you would ONLY be allowed to fossick in a limited number of small areas (and these would soon be depleted) - I think that is a bit of a dangerous argument to push.

 

[Matt80]

Your talking about things that require either a mining licence or a prospecting permit, these are both very different to a fossicking licence or miners right. If your using heavy equipment your mining not fossicking.

If they changed the department coving the activities that are more hobby oriented then of course some of the legislation would have to change, but given how poorly the mining departments have handled people at our end of the mining scale it would seem hard to make things much worse. Most fossickers never find enough gold to pay for their equipment so it's definitely a hobby for most.

 

[user 4386]

Your talking about things that require either a mining licence or a prospecting permit, these are both very different to a fossicking licence or miners right. If your using heavy equipment your mining not fossicking.

If they changed the department coving the activities that are more hobby oriented then of course some of the legislation would have to change, but given how poorly the mining departments have handled people at our end of the mining scale it would seem hard to make things much worse. Most fossickers never find enough gold to pay for their equipment so it's definitely a hobby for most.

True, but I often see one lead directly to another, and I can understand why government does not want to split activities. My concern is more that splitting them cuts the continuum between them, and is likely to result in more limited areas to prospect (at present there are still some things in common with small miners, a number of whom are members, and it gives a bit more support to the activity). The greens can't fight the fact that 40% of our exports are mining, but if hobbyists are split out they will just argue that it is an environmentally undesirable hobby of no consequence to more than a small number of people.

 

[limpalot]

I have a Parks vic map of Chiltern Mt Pilot National Park prospecting guide, 2011, It has Prospecting Permitted areas along Reedy Ck.

 

[Swinging & digging]

As the creek is on a National Park the landholders can manage the resources as it sees fit. This overides the exempt list.

so from what i have seen , I guess the river is 100 kilometres long , well real long anyway , and what you are saying is that only the section of the creek in that particular national park is legal to prospect.

in future , I shall navigate national Park information on other rivers that are on the Exempt list.
Like Sutherland Creek down at Stieglitz is not even on the exempt list , yet national parks have it as being prohibitted from prospecting except for a small 400 metre section.

Wouldn't it be great to have a government website that simply had the answers.

A Stream can be within a National Park where no Prospecting is allowed and not be mentioned on the exempt list.
The Alpine National Park is a good example of this, prospecting is prohibited within the entire National Park, yet there are many streams within that National Park that are not mentioned on the exempt list.

When researching legal access to streams for prospecting you need to consult the exempt list and list of National Parks where prospecting is permitted.
Worth noting the Victorian National Parks group are not happy with prospecting been allowed in some National Parks atm.

 

[Matt80]

Wouldn't it be great if there was a simple map with where u could go shaded in green, where u needed special permission shaded yellow and everywhere else red? Too much to ask it seems...

 

[moeee]

Wouldn't it be great if there was a simple map with where u could go shaded in green, where u needed special permission shaded yellow and everywhere else red? Too much to ask it seems...

i have seen government official maps of parts of Victoria where the areas are displayed exactly as you mention

Prolly best I go see what is about and save them in my own personal folder - not that I travel far from home but good to have just the same