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Post by fudnz on May 3, 2009 20:54:58 GMT 12
Good posting and a great read thanks Ray. I have a feeling that phil had some pictures of the gold on the bottom. Mayhap it was somewhere else clutha River. I do remember him showing me some under water shots. This was when we had the twin 9 inch jet boat powered triple dredge in above the jewelers box... This was when I had the 5 inch triple keene there as well. I remember following a small crack in the bottom that gave forth half an ounce of gold but I got to a point where the 15 foot of suction hose was not long enough to follow the crack out. Handling the 9 inch suction on the big triple was a real buzz as the bottom just seem to disappear up the hole. I never did get to clean out the crevice as this was at the time that they were flooding the new lake and they were raising it one metre every couple of days. Keep the reads coming -- cheers Allan.
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Post by goldkiwi on May 3, 2009 23:10:57 GMT 12
Sorry for delay to finish this story. Dredging at night with surface lights was not really such a good idea. The only way this would work would be with underwater lighting. Biggest problem was the small area the lights illuminated. While the eels scared the hell out of us at the time, not being able to see what was around us was more of a problem. We watched the buttress take shape during the next 5-6 months and I estimate we worked less than 10% of the available brown wash leaving behind thousands of ounces. How many ounces of gold did we recover from the Jewellers shop? If you read through the posts you will figure it out roughly and the rest I will leave up to your imagination. Here is a photo shown by Homesouth of the finished buttress. When we pulled out Mark and his partner found a few areas of wash on the edges of the buttress while Phil and I went searching in and around Cromwell for likely gold dredging ground. Even after the MOW finished the buttress good gold was found in and around the Jewellers Shop on dry ground. Several crevices carried ounces of course gold showing this was indeed a very rich area. Why and how was the gold there! If you stand on the lake shore at Cromwell looking north up the valley towards Wanaka, imagine the water is the exact area of a glacier thousands of years ago. The wide basin is known as the Shine Basin and the glacier stopped where you are standing on the lake shore. About 20 km up the valley on the East side sit the Bedigo reefs. The ancient river course picked up the gold from these reefs and carried the gold downstream along the edge of the glacier to where the glacier terminated at Lowburn. The glacier had ripped off all soil and vegetation during its advance down the valley before it stopped, leaving a clay deposit at the Jewellers Shop. The gold was dropped on this clay basement when the river current slowed on the not so steep hillside. During the glacier retreat, three different river channels were created at different heights. Two channels were above the Clutha River as we used to know it, and one below the river level. The above river channels were worked out by the early miners and the low channel is what this story is about. With the loss of the Jewellers Shop, we now had two dredges and no ground so best we find something quick. As mentioned in an earlier post we attempted to divert the river unsuccessfully due to a rising river but on a third attempt succeded and from what I was told probably another 100 ounces or so was dredged off a rock bottom. It didnt take us long to find the next payable ground to dredge also only minutes away from Cromwell. Below Cromwell where the Clutha and Kawarau rivers meet, and less than a stone throw from the original main road, there is a small island with the perfect low pressure area. Once again I found this by floating down the river. There was an underwater rock terrace stretching downstream for 50 metres but only 4-5 metres wide of rotten schist. A wash of one foot, lots of black sands and mostly 1-3 dwt nuggets. 28 ounces in one week. I couldnt believe our luck. And there is more. Stay tuned.
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Post by RKC on May 4, 2009 10:22:31 GMT 12
G'day goldkiwi, Its great to be able to read all the details of the story ... and looking forward to reading more! In the photo in the post above it looks like the old Lowburn bridge in the distance. Reading this makes me wonder just how much gold the bucket dredge must have got when it went through that area. Here are some photos of the Lake around Lowburn as it is these days ... Regards, Rob (RKC)
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Post by roscoe on May 4, 2009 12:33:05 GMT 12
Great photos, as always, Rob. When GK has finished, I`ll throw in a couple of Aussie tales, one involving Lubo.
Dunno how deep the lake is over the Jeweller`s Shop, but I wonder if we will ever be allowed to dredge in Lake Eildon which looks to be shallower. I know a certain person did well on the old course of the Goulburn near Jamieson till they got hunted. ;D
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Post by goldkiwi on May 4, 2009 13:51:47 GMT 12
Another chapter
Dredging up that last 28 ounce patch in a strong current had become second nature to us and as we moved upstream closer behind the island the current dropped off altogether. The black sand was there in bucketloads plus fine gold all through the BS. Right in behind the island the water was six metres deep.
The wash was something I had not seen before. Three metres of tight packed cobbles, numerous layers of black sand with very nice gold, some layers about one foot thick. Of course the cobbles were all 8.5" in size and wouldnt go up the 8" so we had to carry thousands of rocks back behind us. As we worked into the 3 mtere face we uncovered big flat rocks the size of a car. These had slid down off the hillside and lay flat in amongst the wash.
Dredging become dangerous sucking in and under these big slabs. The gravel face was vertical and moving the slabs was difficult and slow, losing time dredging. In the black sand layers, the gold was easily seen and this kept us going.
I think we worked behind the island for about 2 months, the pile of cobbles was impressive but hard work. We took turns as rockman carrying a basket loaded with rocks up the pile and over the back, 10 metres back from the hose. At least we didnt have any current to struggle against.
Our mates the eels checked us over, staying three days, swimming between our legs and around our arms right up to the nozzle. Mind you these were the smaller cousy's of the night boys. They let us scratch their bellys and sucked on our gloves. One day a school of trout spied on us for a few hours, feeding on material coming out of the wash face. The big boss trout was a monster, with big hook jaw.
On the river-side of the island which jutted out into the river, was a mound of BS taller than me that had concentrated there for possibly donkeys years. We put the nozzle at the base of this BS mound and slowly let the BS be sucked up the hose and watched gold trickle down the face creating a fabulous sight.
By now we had our underwater movie camera in operation and Phill lay there filming this beauty shot of stars in the milky way.
I think the film many of you refer to is the same so I will see if I can get this off Phill and onto this site.
Because we sucked the BS wash up slowly not wanting to lose any gold, it took the best part of a day to clean out that corner. The boxes turned yellow but I cannot remember how many ounces although not up to the Jewellers Shop standard.
By now we were well into the summer months and having a real good time, plenty of gold, red wine with our meal every night but there is always that something to jolt you back.
From Phill's home to where we parked at the island was 5 minutes. The dredge was well secured behind the island in case of overnight flooding but when we scrambled down the riverbank to the dredge that morning, something was out of place. It took a few seconds to figure out someone had knicked both our 11 hp motors and pumps from the Keene 8" triple.
Over the next couple of days we checked out likely suspects, asking everyone for leads to no avail. Years later we never found the culprit even tho the dredging community is small. Recently our 8" dredge was stolen on the West Coast by another dredger but this time he ended up in court and found guilty.
The Keene was replaced with my dredge so we could continue on behind the island. In the end those big slabby rocks become too difficult and dangerous to move so we walked away from another great pot of gold but this time we did recover the best of it.
To continue.
Rob, there is a photo looking downstream from Cromwell of the Clutha and Kawarau junction somewhere on this board. Can you post this for me please.
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Post by RKC on May 4, 2009 13:55:43 GMT 12
G'day Rosco, The water in Lake Dunstan over the remaining gold at the Jewelers Shop is very deep ... but of more of a barrier is the dirt that was placed over the gold by the engineers from the dam. If I have understood correctly, the remaining gold is under the road in this photo and now the road is covered by deep water. When we were dredging Big river in the mid 80s, Lake Eildon would be full when we arrived at the start of the season and then after Christmas it would start to go down as water was used for irrigation. So, as the water level would go down, the dredgers would head down there to dredge ... but it would only be a short time between when the lake went down enough to expose flowing water and the season would end because of the commencement of the cold weather. We used to regard Anzac day as the time of year when the weather usually turned and the season would be about over. When we were dredging there the water never got so low that we could get dredges down to where Big river flowed into the Goulburn. But I believe that since those days the lake has gone down so much that the old river bank workings at the junction are exposed. And the ground at the junction was extremely rich for the original miners and I think I read somewhere that during the Great Depression of the the 1930s, miners did very well down there ... so my guess would be that there is excellent gold in the river near the junction from ground that has never been dredged by modern dredgers. There would probably be thick layers of silt over the rivers auriferous wash however. Regards, Rob (RKC)
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Post by RKC on May 4, 2009 14:13:32 GMT 12
G'day Goldkiwi, This is probably the photo of the junction before the lake filled. Its a long time ago, but I think I remember seeing a dredge in at the junction about the time I took the photo. The film you refer to is probably the one Phil showed to me ... it would be well worth while posting it here so more could view it. There would not be anything like it ever filmed by dredgers anywhere. Regards, Rob (RKC
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Post by goldkiwi on May 4, 2009 18:23:09 GMT 12
Hi Rob Yes that is the photo of the river junction. I forgot how low the river was that year. You can see how behind the big rock was a great place for gold to drop. The dredges and miners were not able to poke their noses in behind the rock so this was virgin ground again. Certainly brings back memories.
You have some excellent photos Rob and from what I've seen on this site a stack of great mining shots.
The embankment built on top of the Jewellers Shop was 60 feet thick, so dont get any crazy ideas about dredging it up.
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Post by goldkiwi on May 4, 2009 22:01:21 GMT 12
Another chapter.
The Clutha river remained at low levels for most of the winter with low rainfall thru the summer allowing us to dredge in places normally too rapid to even contemplate.
Once we pulled the dredge out from behind the island it was back in the water floating downstream in search of another hot spot. Phil and I with dive bottles on, scooted down the true left side of the Clutha from the river junction at Cromwell. The current far to quick to dredge and nothing shallow enough to work so off to the right side and half a mile downstream, just upriver from the Hartley and Rileys beach, we found another great deposit.
In only seven to eight feet of water, a very large area of a black sand beach comprising small manageable size cobbles and gravels, three feet of wash and gold in every pan we tried. The dredges were not able to work this deposit as too shallow for the dredges on the river in the 1900 dredging boom era. This would keep us going for a long time.
Ahh, but there was a catch, the wash started out from the river bank and the river was swift. It would not be possible to work out in the river off our dredge. The dredge required more flotation to support our weight so we can climb up on the dredge away from the river bank. There were no good points for a bow line anchor as the bottom was flat with no big boulders for a rope to hang from. Just too dangerous in swift water.
We decided to continue searching downstream. Over the next 4-5 days we found several places with very good gold and in hindsight we should have been in this part of the Clutha years ago as we knew the history of big gold finds in the early years. We were kicking ourselves. We knew about the early miners panning pounds of gold in every pan off the sand bars down this stretch of river and chose to ignore it.
No suction dredger had even considered working here in such a big river but this didnt bother us. Virgin ground for miles. We dived INTO a crevice full of BS and maoris, gold visible in the wash. I filled a plastic bag of BS and panned out 1.5 dwt from half a panfull. There was more than enough ground there for a dozen suction dredgers.
The only way to work in the faster water was to build a dredge with enough flotation to support two men and a ladder onto the dredge to exit out of the water. Back to the drawing board and hatched a plan to modify the Keene 8" with lots more flotation. Two pumps and motors to build.
We were running out of time with the Clyde dam soon to be filled. By the time we organised pumps and floats the dam was on the rise and we never got to dredge in that immensely rich area again.
Talking to Phill recently about what we left there still annoys and frustrates both of us knowing full well what remained in the Clutha gorge. I remember driving on the old road towards Cromwell long before the dam was mentioned, looking down at the river thinking I should try there.
In 15 years of dredging I had never seen so much gold as in the Jewellers Shop and down the Clutha gorge probably lay several more Jewllers Shops. Dang it.
Tomorrow for more.
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Post by goldkiwi on May 5, 2009 16:29:48 GMT 12
Almost the final chapter of dredging around Cromwell.
Once the gates were closed on the Clyde dam, the lake behind the dam rose much quicker than we first thought. We figured the lake would rise over several months giving us an opportunity to dredge those fast water hot spots as the water become deeper and slowed, but in fact the dam was rising at one or two metres every second day, not allowing us to even get set-up before it was too deep to dredge.
During this period, Phill and I went upstream of the Jewllers Shop and the big buttress where the bottom was schist basement to try behind a rock shelf we found when floating down the river. About ten metres out from the bank, 25 ' deep, in a strong current, we found some reasonable gold behind the shelf but there were lots of little boil holes in the bottom which carried nice pockets of nuggety gold.
Our gold returns had plummeted from 30 + ounces a week to only? 2 ounces a day.
I almost lost my life in this patch. My airline was mounted to a dive belt which we had developed for use in swift water. The airline kinked behind me where I couldnt see, with immediate stop of air. In 25" of water I reached to drop my 30 kg weight belt but couldnt find the loose end of the belt.
Wearing a Swedish dry suit with bulky gloves I couldnt feel the belt. Also I was wearing a full face mask that covered most of my face and the mouth piece was attached to the mask.
I pushed off to the surface for some air, weight belt still on, swimming like crazy, reached the surface and found the facemask was too difficult to pull off but managed to gasp a lungfull of air. With the weight I carried I was soon back on the bottom already short of air, too far away from the river bank to head for shallow water. I was actually thinking this was it, I'm done for.
Phill was on the river bank with an ear infection and didnt see that I was in trouble so I knew no help was coming.
Past the point of no air I could feel the panic coming on. I knew if I didnt stop, relax and find that belt end immediately it was all over.
Relax, think, feel for the belt, yes got it, pushing off at the same time started breathing in water. Floating on top, coughing puking up water and finally made the shore where I lay for a good half hour. Phill said " you have to get back in the water ". He was right.
First thing we done was throw away the full face mask that was good in the cold water but dangerous in use. Then get rid of the belt for the airline and go back to our old method of using the weight belt to hold the line in position.
Back in the water I soon forgot about how close I was to drowning but years on when dredging in certain circumstances, that day passes thru my mind slowing me down a little.
We worked here for a short time untill the current beat us and finally pulled the dredge out of the water.
Phill, Mark and a few others managed to divert the river here and recovered good gold before the rising lake pushed everyone out.
I would say without a doubt, the Jewllers Shop and that stretch of river below Cromwell would be the richest gold dredging you will ever find anywhere in the world, and we only touched on it all but too late. I'm still kicking myself.
One to go.
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Post by roscoe on May 5, 2009 21:12:55 GMT 12
Weight belts are a pain in the butt, especially when you have to double up with 7mm suits. We experimented with detachable shoulder straps to take the load off our hips, then we went to a rocket-type rig with two pvc tubes running down our backs with a number of heavy lead slugs in each. A quick-release pin held them in at the bottom. It was mounted on a cut-down scuba-type vest. But we already wore a similar type vest to secure the air and HWS lines so you ended up looking like a trussed mummy. Lead anklets worked in a few situations where your legs kept wandering up over your head. Re the panic stations, a few times that I came close, I found that counting (no, not sheep, dummy ;D) seemed to focus your attention away from the looming crisis. I got caught up in an offshore current at the Gold Coast once and was sure I saw either Kiwiland or South America. Think I got to 3768 from memory. I guess we all work out our own solution.
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Post by goldkiwi on May 6, 2009 19:03:52 GMT 12
Finally the final chapter.
Once the lake level had risen to near its full height, the Cromwell goldfield disappeared under water and the end of suction dredging with it.
I have lost track of time but we were dredging for about eight months at Cromwell before the lake beat us. Over the years I have been fortunate to find some big deposits around Otago. Good ones to, like a 24 ounce afternoon in the Kawarau, numerous 17 & 20+ ounce days in the Waipori, or months of 4 ounce days, but none came even close to the Jewellers Shop for consistant long term big ounce days and weeks.
Of course there were the weeks of high river and no gold, or half ounce days for ages, waiting untill you hit the hot spot again, but around Cromwell we never experienced low returns. We just checked the likely hot spots and the gold was there all with-in a 5 km radius around Cromwell. I still dont understand why suction dredgers had not been there years before us. Perhaps it was the size and swiftness of the river or like us, just plain didnt think about giving it a shot.
We still had a months of concentrates wrapped in plastic bags, hidden in and around Phill' house waiting for time to stream down and melt into weighty bars.
Our streaming down box was 6" wide 3' long with grass matting and no riffles. Water from the garden hose, a garden trowell, lazyboy seats and by the end of the second day quite a collection of extras. Now as most of you will know, cleaning black sand concentrates can be a long slow can't go any faster, not boring but well, slow! I cant find the photo album of these.
By the end of the first day we could see this was going to take over a week to clean all the bags of concentrates. Each individual bag washup was kept seperate and we had bets on how many ounces in each bag. I think our lowest bag was eight ounces and on up to 53 ounces.
Now Phill and I just happen to like the odd tipple of red wine, so the second day while I streamed down, Phill shot off for the 'extras'. He was away for hours but when he arrived back there was a case of different red wines, rib eye steaks and other goodies for munching.
Lunch was quite a feast while we took turns on the garden trowell feeding the box, sitting in our lazyboys and by mid afternoon three bottles of red had dissappeared. We gave up on the gold and early to bed. The next morning finally under way by 10:00 and the same ritual, a wee drop, some more rib eye, and I think two bags of concentrates before slurry speech and tiredness overtook us again.
On the third morning a package turned up from NZ couriers. Phill unbeknown to me had ordered some real extras. Lunch was scallops, crayfish, mussles in garlic, and the shrimp was kept for tomorrow. Nothing was a problem. Phill continued to dish up the most extravagant foods with the best of red of course.
By now our clean-up process had deteriated into only three hours of gold streaming and a whole day of a wine and food festival. The one week become two weeks but I never had so much fun and laughter. If you can imagine two guys after two bottles, glass of red in hand, munching on steak or crayfish and trying to quietly feed concentrate into the box, never a dull moment, watching the gold turn into piles before cleaning off the mat and starting again. We never stopped laughing. That was a fantastic two weeks.
Diving in the swift river had really leaned us down carrying no fat but by the end of two weeks of gluttony we both had developed pot guts. At the end we had become tired of rich food and toast was just fine thank you.
As we cleaned up the last bags, we began to realise this was the end of an era. We would probably never do this again. What a fabulous time and memories.
Memories like when we first got onto the JS, a mate who we knicknamed The Gannet, helped us out. Gannet was a professional Paddy dive instructor and when he turned up ready to jump into the Clutha with all the bells and whistles on, things like bouyancy inflaters and gauges and knives and so on, Phill and I burst out laughing. We had the barest minimum on. Gannet didnt understand why we cracked up. Twenty minutes after hitting the current the Gannet was back on the river bank stripping off all the surplus equipment. No way was he able stay in the current with all that extra gear dragging him backwards.
Remembering our first week clean up of over one kilogram and a best ever week of 53 ounces. Or nearly drowning.
Since that time we built a large dredge with outboard motor to work on the Clutha below the Roxburgh dam but that's another story. If only we had this big dredge back then. In hindsight we are all wiser but I still kick myself.
I met some great honest dredgers who didnt jump onto what we had even tho there was no licences involved.
I hope you enjoyed the events as I have reliving them. It really was a blast.
May the rivers be low, the rocks not too big, a road beside the river and yellow in your boxes.
Cheers
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Post by auriferous on May 7, 2009 10:49:45 GMT 12
Thankyou goldkiwi for such an excellent read. Your non-de-plume should be goldenkiwi....it must've seemed like winning the art union. Cheers Kev. P.S. I thought I’d look into the Clyde Dam after goldkiwi’s article. It may not happen in my lifetime but one day the gold in the Clutha gorge may be accessible once again. There are two reasons why I say this, landslides and earthquakes. A decent landslide into the former gorge could stress the dam sufficiently to bring it down, wouldn’t be the first time in the world that such has happened. Slip joints were incorporated into the structure to allow flexibility during an earthquake may make the dam more susceptible to wave pressure in a landslide event. The more likely scenario is a decent earthquake along the fault zone that runs from below Roxborough through the northeast face of the Old Man range right under the dam and along the old lake margin of Dunstan range, the Cairnmuir/Dunstan fault may not be the problem one. When you see the displacement at Waikerikeri, it makes one wonder why the hell they made a dam where they did, perhaps the Muldoon govt had already expended too much on developing the Dunstan site. I know this seems a bit fatalistic, but it seems coincident with extreme weather patterns these days comes earthquakes and landslides. I hope it doesn’t though, for the sakes of those living in downtown Alexandra. mightyclutha.blogspot.com/2009/03/clyde-dam-burst-what-would-really.htmlSorry Rob and all, it’s a bit off the dredging topic, but I couldn’t help myself, after thinking of the sunken piles, but hell, I wouldn’t live in Alex for all the gold in China. Regards Kev.
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Post by RKC on May 8, 2009 13:42:14 GMT 12
G'day Kev,
Well, the Clyde dam coming down is probably more likely to happen than the likelihood of the Pulse Devil MD ever becoming available.
Regards, Rob (RKC)
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Post by goldkiwi on May 8, 2009 14:12:40 GMT 12
The Clutha was a large fast flowing river above Cromwell but below Alexandra it just gets bigger with inflows from the Kawarau, Molyneaux Conroys and so on. The Jewellers Shop and Cromwell gorge gave up thousands of ounces of gold to miners over a century or more so I wondered what was in the river below the Roxburgh Dam. Having secured the river with a mining licence, a dredge capable of working in the current in such a wide river was in order. I mentioned in the above postings that a dredge with ample flotation to support several people and be able to climb back onto the dredge away from the river bank was of utmost importance. Also the dredge would require its own means of propulsion to move up and down the river. This is what I designed to combat the Clutha. The above photo is our first launching of the dredge in the Taieri River to test the balance and set the boxes in the correct position. The outboard motor was good for about 7-8 mph but some stretches of the Clutha flowed at 12-14 mph, so we zig-zagged across the river looking for a slower current. We always seemed to get there but slowly. Above; On the Clutha. Here two friends and myself working on some nice ground. At this stage I was running my machinery business and these other two characters worked on the dredge full time for 5-6 years. The engine is a turbo 3-cylinder 45 hp Daihatsu diesel and cheap to run at $20/day. Look closer and you can see the pumps which are similar to Keene P350 that I build. The dredge ran two of these for a short time and gave super suction but we had too many problems with the belt drive arrangement and finally replaced with a single Keene P1500. This is an area we called the Seven Sisters. We found a patch here that lasted for months with coarse gold up to 5 dwt and one ounce an hour but with the dam cylcing power generation, most days were only 3-4 hours of dredging. Again huge amounts of black sand. This was the only place below Roxburgh where we found coarse gold and in a very defined small channel on one side of the river. Most of the gold was chunky and had not travelled far so we presumed from a local reef. Oh, by the way the dredge is about ready to go back into the river. If any one who has dredging experience would like to work on the dredge full time on a % basis drop me a line. The dredge always operates with two people for safety.
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