Re-working old goldfields with Large Machines

[Rob]

Can anyone tell me how easy it is to get permits to use large machines (such as scrapers) to re-work the old goldfields? I have seen people on youtube using scrapers in the Golden Triangle Area to take several feet of earth off large areas and then metal detect to find large gold nuggets. These are areas in the Golden Triange where hand shafts were dug decades ago during the gold rush era.

Would I have to buy this type of land or could I lease it? Is any of it for sale? Where would I look?

 

[Matt The Magic Man]

Hi Rob,

I don't know as to the legality of it, but it's got me curious to see how it's done. Could you post a link?

If they are moving earth/gravel by machine then they would require a special licence.

 

[Diggerdude]

Here is a link to the online application. Victoria have a special section for doze and detect operations making it easier than other states to get approved.

http://www.dpi.vic.gov.au/earth-res...irements/prospecting-licence-application-form

DD

 

[Ryan27]

Can anyone tell me how easy it is to get permits to use large machines (such as scrapers) to re-work the old goldfields? I have seen people on youtube using scrapers in the Golden Triangle Area to take several feet of earth off large areas and then metal detect to find large gold nuggets. These are areas in the Golden Triange where hand shafts were dug decades ago during the gold rush era.

Would I have to buy this type of land or could I lease it? Is any of it for sale? Where would I look?

I have been looking for a while at private property for sale. We have a Cat bulldozer on the farm that could be put to good use. Also my business partner in a joint venture owns 12 excavators.
It is not just a matter of rip sh#t bust and tear.
There is a lot to consider when going into a mining business. There are different types of lease arrangements.
Return on investment is a big one. I have built plant for some people with mining leases, 12 months later there equipment and lease are for sale.
Research is the key. However land with gold diggings are highly sort after and don't stay on the market for very long. Hard to do your due diligence in such a short span of time.
I have also found that the prices are excessive. The bank will generally make more money than the miner.
The guy with the scraper faired well from the exercise. He recovered over 800 ounces in peek gold price range.
This is a success story, however the fails are more common.
There is a way to recover good gold under a miners right and be legally allowed to process material on crown land. As long as you stay in the rules a regs, you can't be prosecuted.
I am working on my own mobile plant set up at the moment. It is a costly exercise, however a far lesser risk than financing an operation.
I know this is not answering your question directly. I do know a little about extracting the precious metal. But everyone has there own style and preconceived ideas when it comes to digging up gold. Remember when you go from prospector to miner you are going into business and the work becomes a commitment both financially and effort wise. Being a prospector you are guaranteed to get enjoyment regardless of the result.
As I mentioned I have been looking for a while now ( 18 months ) the last property I looked at with the real estate agent was two weeks ago. I also have some friends in the know, keeping there eyes peeled. However I haven't found much to get me all warm and fuzzy yet.
Remember rule No. 1 in investment is : protect and preserve your capital.
Cheers Ryan

 

[Diggerdude]

It would be way too expensive to buy the land in my opinion. State forest is the easiest to get land owners approval and there are loads of diggings in state forest. The approval costs about $5000 all up. Then you have $19 per hectare per year rent to pay. Your next hurdle is native title, the PMAV have negotiated a fast track approval process for this to make it easier for small scale prospectors, it only covers certain areas but, from memory that costs about $600.
So my advice to make it cheaper would be find an area in state forest that is already covered by the PMAVs native title agreement.

DD

 

[Jacko]

Sounds like good advice Ryan27. Found first gold on our last trip (after 2 years of trying!!) Came across some big scraped areas in WA, probably done by the mines as their test holes were there too. Found a 7.5g at the edge of a scraped area and another on the scraped area. Have an excavator as well, even if we found an area, transport costs would be too high. Happy to keep trying on so many areas available in all states.

 

[Jon]

Take a look at places like those at Wedderburn and other places like that. Dozing has stuffed up plenty of good detecting places in crown land areas. Short term gain for a few, for long term loss to many. Dozing the bush is a dog act.

 

[Redfin]

A part of the conditions of working a Mining lease here in Victoria is that once worked, the land must be returned to it's former state.
Unfortunately this is most always very much more expensive than paying the fine for not complying, hence the friggin mess everywhere.

Me, I'm just going to put a dam on my acreage, opps wrong spot, let's fill that one in, I want it over there now, or was it further along, lets try them both. 8)

 

[Ryan27]

The old moving dam trick hey. Redfin your a fish farmer. We know you need lots of dams for a successful breeding program. I hear your goldfish are tasty.
I agree with Jon bulldozing the bush is despicable act. With the exception of fire breaks to save wildlife and people's lives. Buy private property, then you are committed to bring the property back to a condition where you can recover capital outlay when your finished.

 

[shannon]

if you plan your mine operations correctly with reclamation a key part, there should be little expense to return it to its natural state. back fill as you go.

 

[loamer]

Redfin's dam comment is no joke - we Dunolly boys see them all the time hey Redfin. How many 'high ground dams' have we seen? Lots and funnily enough,they seem to follow along lead lines. There is a series of dams on private property between Dunolly and Bendigo that I loved to detect on during the drought - me and the cow cockie did very well. Private land is the way to go for any small-scale exploration, crown land is just too much of a headache and most of the remediation attempts are a joke- go and look at Cockatoo south of Dunolly. There are a few areas I have on my bucket list to buy when they come up for sale - mainly old selectors blocks that are smack bang in the middle of old leads, workings etc - usually cheap too.

 

[dwt]

From what i understand, purchasing land is a top investment, one of the best, why not purchase it in a gold bearing area's, the mrs and i waited for 12months before we purchased, went through old drilling results, geological maps the works, eventually one of the area's poped up, and its out of the "main stream" area's to prospect, a lot of the more commonly known area's are high priced, we now live in a nice house on 20acres, semi bush with no environmental overlays,one exploration lease from a major player but that has been dicussed and a system is in place, introduced myself to some of the local neighbours, brokered a deal, now my prospecting area has gone from 20 acres to about 800, do your research, you will be amazed what you can find!!!

 

[Ryan27]

Hi Dwt
That's awesome news. And great research too!
Is there diggings on your property? What drilling was conducted, do you know?(depth ect...)
Love to know more and I think many forum members looking at mining leases etc. should investigate this option first.
Good gold blocks are hard to find and certainly worth the investment if it's the lifestyle and gold people are chasing.

 

[Redfin]

Ahh Cockatoo, do you remember the 80 oz piece that was found there around the time
the SD's got released?

He told everyone at the pub he carved an X into a tree close to the location.
The joint was packed for weeks hahahahaha.

Back then the CP was packed year after year. Everyone went detecting in the morning, cashed in
their gold at Finders and went to the pub for the day.

 

[dwt]

Hi Dwt
That's awesome news. And great research too!
Is there diggings on your property? What drilling was conducted, do you know?(depth ect...)
Love to know more and I think many forum members looking at mining leases etc. should investigate this option first.
Good gold blocks are hard to find and certainly worth the investment if it's the lifestyle and gold people are chasing.

Wasup Ryan27, there were apparantly quite a number of diggings down in the lower end of our property, its a gully that dips down for quite some distance, being old farm land subdivided for housing it has seen some years ago all of the old workings flattend out by the farmers who owned the place before it was subdivided, some detecting has produced old nails and timbers, word was there was an old lead somwhere in the area that produced quite well, it was worked by a couple of farming brothers back in the early 1880-90's, once they had made enough to purchase more land and cattle, they simply stopped mining and moved into farming.
That family name is still in the area today, and generations later are still small but farming.
The drill results were easy to come buy as they are a case of public records through the DPI, this area was drilled in the 1980's and again in 2005-2007, one of these drill results came from our place, "Two encouraging drill results of gold mineralisation are reported to be from the NE trending ........Mine shear, 2.0g/t from 0.9mt, 6.1g/t from 4.0mt, 12.61g/t from 48mt. Visible gold was observed twice within sheeted quartz veins and there appears to be strong intrusion-related Au..........correlation. A significant nugget effect may be present, given the presence of coarse gold." you will have to excuse the fact that some key parts of the report have been left out for obivious reasons.
A lot of the sh#t in these reports i dont understand, and it really dosnt bother me to much as i have a close friend who read the results went for a walk, pointed and said "just here will do".
Let the games begin

 

[Ryan27]

Hi Dwt
That's awesome news. And great research too!
Is there diggings on your property? What drilling was conducted, do you know?(depth ect...)
Love to know more and I think many forum members looking at mining leases etc. should investigate this option first.
Good gold blocks are hard to find and certainly worth the investment if it's the lifestyle and gold people are chasing.

Wasup Ryan27, there were apparantly quite a number of diggings down in the lower end of our property, its a gully that dips down for quite some distance, being old farm land subdivided for housing it has seen some years ago all of the old workings flattend out by the farmers who owned the place before it was subdivided, some detecting has produced old nails and timbers, word was there was an old lead somwhere in the area that produced quite well, it was worked by a couple of farming brothers back in the early 1880-90's, once they had made enough to purchase more land and cattle, they simply stopped mining and moved into farming.
That family name is still in the area today, and generations later are still small but farming.
The drill results were easy to come buy as they are a case of public records through the DPI, this area was drilled in the 1980's and again in 2005-2007, one of these drill results came from our place, "Two encouraging drill results of gold mineralisation are reported to be from the NE trending ........Mine shear, 2.0g/t from 0.9mt, 6.1g/t from 4.0mt, 12.61g/t from 48mt. Visible gold was observed twice within sheeted quartz veins and there appears to be strong intrusion-related Au..........correlation. A significant nugget effect may be present, given the presence of coarse gold." you will have to excuse the fact that some key parts of the report have been left out for obivious reasons.
A lot of the sh#t in these reports i dont understand, and it really dosnt bother me to much as i have a close friend who read the results went for a walk, pointed and said "just here will do".
Let the games begin

Very cool, I think a backhoe will be on Santa's list this year?

 

[loamer]

Ahh Cockatoo, do you remember the 80 oz piece that was found there around the time
the SD's got released?

He told everyone at the pub he carved an X into a tree close to the location.
The joint was packed for weeks hahahahaha.

Back then the CP was packed year after year. Everyone went detecting in the morning, cashed in
their gold at Finders and went to the pub for the day.

Ahhhh Dunolly. 'Finders' on Broadway - geez mate- that's going back. I remember the Moliagul Pub would be packed out as well. When the Royal and the Railway were both open, bloody fights on a saturday night. I kid you not, I remember going down to get the papers on Sunday and the empty shot gun shells littered the streets. I remember the big nugget finds just before every school holiday and long weekend. Also the newbies who used the tip 'get to know the locals'. yeah right - rock up to the central Vic pubs and ask the locals "I say old chap - where is the gold located? One would like to go detecting." To this day it still happens. Frosty reception is the nicest thing I can say about that.

Back to big machinery - I think the last big mechanised pushed area would have to be the old rifle range two or so years ago on the road to Eddington. I think Millsy and some of his crew were involved - not too sure of the result as there was an awful lot of lead to be removed. The activity around the Poseidon Lead is interesting, there appears to be a large trommel on the western side, diggings on the east along the ridge line and some serious equipment moving about. All private land of course. I actually found a very small surfaced area on the road-side verge around there and did OK for sub-gram tiddlers - was marked on an old map. The private land between German Gully and Chisolms running down towards the Slip-Up Lead - looks very inviting. Been on with big coils but no machinery. All sheep grazing through there and crops down to the Loddon.

 

[goldtruck59]

For mine, leave the bloody diggings alone on public land. Want to scrape, buy private land and knock yourself out. There is enough history stuffed up already by wanna be millionaires. Leave the gold fields alone for future generations to enjoy and prospect in/on. There are different levels of gold fever and those effected the most with these dreams of stuffing up the land, back off.
How many people come to Dunolly and the like each week and holiday season? Its an enjoyable kicking about the gold fields with friends and family. Just have a look how fighting flat and clovers gully off Kicks lane ( cockatoo track) are totally stuffed up. Its a mess and I for one reckon the gain of a few stuffs it up for the majority.
History bulldozed into 0blivion.

 

[Redfin]

The things that went on around the GT stagger me when I think back.
No one was there to regulate or control things.
Heaps of tractors in the bush with 6 foot blades.
Those that could not afford a tractor dragged logs behind their utes, removing the overburden.
BUT there is still virgin ground out there.