Panning for gold on private property in WA

Hey, new to the forums here. I'm planning on panning for gold in a few rivers, and to my surprise, rivers are actually private land in some places in the Toodyay hills here in WA. It's very sketchy, the rule on what I can and can't do here. I am planning on going panning on a few spots, no one has looked these spots up for me, but everyone including the department of mining and petroleum say that it's private land in Toodyay. I just have no idea how/ who to contact about it. I want to go tomorrow, but a few of the spots I've found don't seem to have any houses/ farms for me to go door knocking on, what do I do about that? Also, I've checked and all my spots I'm planning on going on are all tenement free, so just crown land. Cheers.

G'day danowner and welcome to the forum

Good luck with your adventure, but make sure you have a WA miners right for starters and an APLA membership is also a good idea, it can help you get access to some areas as well.

Remember that "Freehold land" is privately owned and you need the owners permission to access it, this is completely different to Crown Land and Pastoral Leases which are also Crown Land.

National Parks and Heritage Areas are no go areas.

A lot of rivers and creeks etc have a strip of crown land along the banks (not all of them) but if you have to travel across freehold land to get to these strips you still need the owners permission to traverse across his land.

Here is some info on Crown Land in WA.
http://www.lands.wa.gov.au/Crown-Land/Pages/default.aspx

cheers dave

Here is where I went today, I had a look around there, didn't pan, as I went on my own. Drove up and down the property, no sign of any farm houses at all, just empty fields, not cut down or anything. They looked untouched. So I assume this means that it's just public land then inbetween the train tracks, and road shown on this image?



Also, for the love of god, does anyone have a way to find out if it's freehold, lease etc. I really need to find out, as there is another location I've found, that has pending tenement, and it looks to be next to a massive train yard. I am really just so confused as to who I need to ask to go on this property, if at all. Here it is:

G'day danowner

It looks mighty like private land to me and when I look on Google Earth I see farmhouses just down the road to the south and the town of Toodyay starts just 6 km away. I am sure someone would be able to tell you what you want to know.



cheers dave

Thanks for the swift reply mate, Fair enough, won't be going there then. What about that second image? That's in the next town over, near Northam. It's currently under pending tenement, and as stated It looks like a train yard. Would/ should I have to go and find who owns it and still have to ask for permission? And again, just wanted to see if you knew a way to find out who owns property, or the property's land ownership type (Lease etc.) Cheers.

G'day danowner

Just ask around the area for the 2nd one.

Use Tengraph for WA and you will be able to see who owns the pending ground, when it was "pegged" and what type of lease it is, also the contact details for the lease holder.

cheers dave

The 2nd lease in your post is E70/4783 as seen on Tengraph, the E stands for "exploration" and the lease is for "Iron Ore" and the lease holder is Magnetic Resources NL and lodged in October last year.

None of this really matters about it being pending though, as the underlying ground is most certainly Freehold and not Crown Land.

cheers dave

Freehold, so I am free to just enter without permission and prospect? (I have my miners right license). I've only just got tengraph working right now, my last annoying question is how the hell did you find out what kind of hold is on it? I've been up all night last night trying to find out that, cheers

G'day danowner

Freehold, means private land and need permission to enter, nice try.

When your in tengraph and have a screen loaded with tenements on it, click on the tenement of interest, it will go white which means it is the selected one.  Now look along the top right hand side of the screen, you will see some icon buttons just past the scale, the "I" and various others, click on the "I" this is where the info for that particular tenement is.

Also if you know the tenement number your after, look along the top left hand side of the screen and you will see a series of dropdown menus, click on "Enquiry" and select "Tenement" type in the exact number like this one E70/4783 and it will be displayed on the screen.

You can also search in the "Enquiry" by a number of other functions, like Minesite, Place Name, Coordinates, Map Sheet, etc all of these will take you to the general area that interest you at the time.  You can also get the tenement that is selected to display in google earth, in the "File" go to display in google earth and follow the prompts.

It's a very good system and you need to get to learn it well.

cheers dave

Yes, I understand that haha, just actually wondering how you know it's freehold etc. Like, legit how do you actually know? And could you tell me how to see?

danowner wrote:Yes, I understand that haha, just actually wondering how you know it's freehold etc. Like, legit how do you actually know? And could you tell me how to see?

Just by looking at the area in Google Earth, lots of roads and small blocks in the area your talking about, now take a look out around Leonora Leinster area in Google Earth and compare the vast differences.

Also when in Tengraph out around the Leonora Leinster areas for example it tells you the pastoral lease name, for example "Leinster Downs" and if you highlight the boundary you can see where it goes.

Compare the area your talking about in Tengraph and all you see is a mass of small blocks, which tell me from experience they are Private land "Freehold"

You can lookup a government site which will tell you what is private/freehold but you have to pay for the info.

cheers dave