New Zealand Gold Prospecting & Metal Detecting Forums Archive

Just don't let the owner of the holiday park see your findings, he over charges I hear so try barter, The Marewhenua has good gold there, use a sluce box, try for bedrock and cracks, all else fails,(which it wont) wash the willow roots off the schist bedrock. Also there are lots of rock hounding to be done around there also, with the north Otago fossil trail, whale fossils, shark's teeth, Head south over the pass and try your luck (with beer in hand)in the Kyeburn river, opposite the Dansey's pass hotel. Good luck.

Oops I forgot about that,permit No53160 Allan Dunford, has 6.93 ha(never mind glass earths prospecting permit, 5262sq km) Yes it pays to do homework, and looking at crown minerals permit maps is also good for finding gold bearing areas. Alan is quite approachable, not sure how to get hold of him, he might even be here somewhere,

Someone I know had a not so nice experience with the fella, Would not let him run a box and charged $35 for a tent site, would not show him anything because he might not know what he got and get all greedy when more people want to pan there. But hey ,there is the rest of the river. :)

I don't think you should listen to all that , go and find out for yourself!

I have never heard anything of the sort and found them to be nice people who depend on building a good reputation with their clients!

Most of the gold you get in the Maerewhenua river and general area is very fine flood gold.

You get colour almost anywhere you pan but that's about it, occasionally you might get lucky just up above the camp but it gets quite a lot of attention!

It's a fun safe place to teach kids to pan and mess about with primary gold catching gear but even in the good old days nobody ever got rich there.

It was known as a poor man's gold field but a few families hung on right up into the early 1960's and were working when I first came to North Otago.

They had to move a lot of wash to just break even and then the sludge channels in the river and creeks were closed.

Subsequently the the head water races closed down and fell into a state of disrepair and were abandoned.

My wife's Grandfather apparently lost a lot of money in there with a dredging folly but the history is patchy at best although there is still evidence of it to be seen if you know where to look.

I play there myself but I am the last of the summer wine just enjoying being there and waiting for God. (lol)

Yep. The new owners are very nice people. I can't see them charging people for digging gold up.

Who said anything about him charging for gold, Just said he tried to charge my mate $35 per night for an un powered tent site, that all!!!!!!!

Sorry, you are right. I meant Neil. He is a really interesting bloke.

ended up going on a 2 day panning trip to danseys with a mate, was really good (When it wasnt raining!) and panning was awesome. met about 5 other prospectors up the river who were all using sluice boxes. we had a look around the crevices in the bedrock and some possible areas where gold could have been deposited in the river, also i took a member of this websites advice and tryed washing plants and roots near the river. this porved to be good and we were panning in on average 4 flecks each a pan. all the gold was just small flecks with one big fleck. so all up for about 5 or 6 hours prospecting (and relaxing) we got about 30 flecks of gold. we have decided we will be returning soon with sluice boxes to speed up the amount of gold were getting!
if anyone has a sluice box they are willing to sell id be interested?
thanks guys :)

that sounds like a really great place, maybe not for panning up a fortune, but these days the "old style" holiday park is a rarity.
thanks for the link to the article

it really is a great place mavrick..when i was living in Oamaru i use to go there on a regular basis even for day trips to do a little panning and also just for the adventurous walks up river...also my wife enjoys swimming there as does my son so we all have a great time when there...

As for neil yes he helped me out alot and showed me that you could get color right down by the tent sites..