New Zealand Gold Prospecting & Metal Detecting Forums Archive

Hey guys i recently managed to convince my lady friend that it would be a good idea to tramp a few hours through the bush and stay at a doc hut. The idea was to take the detector along and try to find some gold. Upon ariving at the car park we took a few minutes to sort out our gear and assemble the detector. As we were about to leave a nice white ute with Doc markings pulled up and out stepped a guy wearing Doc uniform. Well i thought to myself this isnt a good look, standing there with a pack on, detector in hand and obivous intentions to lay waste to his treasured expanse of bush. However the expected telling off did not eventuate instead he was rather interested and wished me good luck with my quest! We then proceeded up the track and detected some creeks we came across all without finding gold. I did do my bit for mother nature however and removed a couple of dozen bullets and bullet casings from the streams.... The rest of the trip was pretty cool too i found some old stone huts and had a detect around them and found a couple of old buttons with "the miners mole" written on them. Dont tell the historic places tust... . On day 2 the rain came down and we went home and got a few more .22 bullets on the way along with a 10 cent coin about 2 hours from anywhere. Shame about the lack of gold but it made me think that perhaps Doc are not all that bad so long as you dont piss them off. Little do they know we stayed at their hut for free.

Nice one Hatter. You may have just been lucky with the DOC chap. Lucky you didnt have a sluice box or small dredge with you. He obviously didnt see you as being too much of a threat. I have had some good encounters with DOC chaps as well but have also heard some bad stories & prosecutions. Some like their power trips & love their authority over us mere mortels that pay there salaries.
Shame the gold wasnt fourth coming but sounds like you had a good time anyway & that is the main thing. The gold is just an excuse to get into the great outdoors. Any gold being a bonus.
Were your buttons like this one?



Happy hunting

JW :)

Hey JW the buttons were different and less corroded to the one that you showed a picture of. I think they must be fairly old tho because they were underneath some decent roots.

At the end of the day we realised that if we had of asked DOC first where to go, we would of been sweet. They tell you everything... We were a bit tactful tho of coarse. Didnt want to go in there with ya eyes bulging or nothin, just fossicking around ya know...