old gold mines found in SA

We did lots of research and spoke to a lot of old timers before making tracks from tassy to final destination WA. We were told of an old gold mine by a old gentleman in clare who is now in his late 80's and we met up with him nearly a week ago. He took us to a spot out in some hills and showed us an area where his dad dug out a quartz seam with gold before world war 1. We ran the detector over the area with the gentleman watching on and within 10 minutes we had our first small nugget from there. We ended up with 8 small nuggets in about 2hrs and then gave the gold to this kind gentleman. All up we found approx. 3.7 grams on almost clean gold. We have permission to return to that spot any time. The gentleman who showed us this spot was absolutly amazed at what new technology could do and he thought that nobody had ever been back to this spot since his father went to war. This is a spot we will return to for sure once back from WA

Another spot that we are now currently looking at that we had arranged to see is nearer to port pirie in the ranges. We have been shown a shaft that was dug in the 30's as well and the land owner told us that he was told that gold was dug out of there before he was born but he has had a good look and could never see and gold so was not convinced they ever got gold from there. we have been yesterday with land owner there part of the time. We told owner we would show hinm anything that we find and he could have what he wanted we we were able to come back and do some more searching. Well we have also found a small bit in quartz just below where the shaft comes out the side of the hill so will be investibating it more in a few hrs. This spot we will be back to for more time once we return from WA.

We have yet to look at some other spots further north towards leigh creek where we are assured there is more old gold mines that have most likely been forgotten about. we were told that a lot of the old gold mines in south australia had lost there history as the archives building was destroyed by fire many years ago. so now only a few of the lod timers still have any recolection of current land owners who may happen to have an old mine on there property.
Its interesting to note that with all the phone calls ect that we have made, very few of the people we spoke to believed that gold could have been found on there property onr on neibouring propertys or did not even know that the neibours property had a shaft on it.

Will try and post some pictures when we figure out again how to. We are meeting up with another member from this forum in the next week and a half to if cannot work it out he will help us.

cheers and good scratchn travelergold

Isnt that a great story.
Well done on your find and generosity to repay the "old man"
Unfortunately now-days older people are not that well look after but the knowledge they have is priceless.

Good luck on your trip and plenty good karma to follow you.
GoldEN

Have to second that, he will now certainly know there is still some good people out there.

Good luck with your scratching.

Nightjar

Brilliant story, travelergold And fantastic to hear some success stories from good old SA ... leaves me with thoughts of maybe staying home a little more, instead of always going over to VIC and spending my money

Nice work, its good to hear SA has a few hidden treasures

good to see wally , and kind to give the old guy the finds he would of been so [pleased , will have to catch up when you return



cheers starry

Just a quick update on our travels, We found a spot between parachillna and beltanna 2km east off the main road to leigh creek. Was also told about this area and when we got to spot we set up camp as was near dark. We are used to seeing 'salt and pepper' in WA and this area looked better than we had ever seen before. Just couldnt wait to get machine purring. Looks can be very decieving. After so much quartz and ironstone on ground we thought WOW. but we never got one signal. very disapointed. Even tried dry panning but not so much as a speck.
spent a day there then moved on to leigh creek. We are now looking at an old gold mine out the back of copley. Has been a real issue getting approval to go on land as is now under ownership of aborigonal group. The only person to be able to grant approval is in adelaide and not contactable. Will try our luck, they can only kick us of, we are told locally that they would not enter area for mths at a time so should not be a problem.
on another note, our deep cycle AGM 150amp battery is letting us down. does not like the load anymore, is 3yrs old so I supose has not done to bad. Will have to update it in Alicesprings when we get there.
cheers to all and happy scratch'n
travelergold