So I decided to head to a new place for a change and thought I write up a yarn on it, maybe entertain someone? someone might get a laugh.
Did some research and knew roughly where I wanted to go, no claim on the map that I could see in the exact area I was keen to check out and saw there was a 4WD track that goes pretty close to the river so seemed pretty straight forward.
However when I started up the track I pretty soon found a rise that looked like a proper 4WD challenge and didn’t know what the softroader I had would do, I decided discretion was needed so to park and walk in.
It looked like only about 2 k’s on the map, but it felt like 5 or 6 walking it – all uphill. Took over an hour but rewarded with amazing views down to the river. Managed to find the track down to the river which soon became pretty overgrown. I thought it would only be 20 mins downhill but it actually took closer to an hour. Were a few places where trees and slips were over the track so it was a bit hard to follow but got there in the end.
Pretty close to 2 hours to get from car park to river. Started up the river towards the “canyon” bit I wanted to check out, detecting as I went, found a couple of old axe heads but no gold. Beaut country though! Got to the sharp corner of the river which looked like the only way to the area I was keen to see and found a slightly sketchy rock shelf about 2 meters off the river which had some old metal cables someone had kindly put in. The other side of the river didn’t look accessible or any easier, so without thinking scrambled around the corner with one hand holding my detector the other the cable.
Only half way along I realised it wasn’t so smart as I was wearing waders and if I fell in, I wouldn’t have hurt myself hitting the water, but probably would drown as waders not so good in deeper water! And I didn’t know if the cables were safe. Should have thought of that before I started around the corner!
Anyway obviously made it round despite it being a bit sketchy one handed and after a look was pretty sure I was on the wrong side of the river as the other side had lovely gravel banks my side had areas of bedrock but looked pretty clean - outside. I waved my detector over it, didn’t take long and I got a great signal – in 80s on the AT Gold, so pretty sure it was the good stuff in a decent crack in the bedrock. Cleaned it out as best I could and could see under the water something dull yellow about an inch long, but it was wedged proper good and no matter what I did I couldn’t get it out with what I had at hand!!
So a bit frustrated I determined to cross the river to the gravel banks. It was just too swift and deep to safely cross in the waders so I decided to swim it. Found a decent spot stripped to my boxers, grabbed my pan and swum across. Made it ok although the current was a lot stronger than I thought and was probably a bit sketchy swimming without any idea of the river.
So there I was in my boxers in the middle of nowhere with just a gold pan. I kinda wondered if a bunch of Japanese tourist anglers would suddenly appear and I’d be in facebook in the worst way! Then I realised I hadn’t got my sniffer bottle, any way to dig and no way to get any gold back to the other side of the river anyway doh!
Anyway I spent about 20 minutes panning anyway before I got cold enough to swim back. Really needed longer to go further upstream, regret now going so far and not heading upstream more!
When I swam back but I somehow cut my foot on rock so had to pull the pin on the day. I managed to get back OK but it took a bit longer than the way in with the sore foot. At the end of the day had nothing really to show but this long tale. One day I’ll head back with some decent tools to find out what that #@! signal was.
Would be interested to know if anyone knows the area I am talking (off the Aorere) about can clue me in why I didn’t find any colour in my panning, first time I’ve struck out in a gold producing area! Normally I’ll see some colour even if not much. Any ideas?
WWW
