G'day from an alluvial gold lease owner - hobby miner only.

[PJ]

Hello all

I thought I'd join this forum to give others assistance if I can, share some of my experiences and possibly get some of my questions answered as they pop up.

I'm a hobby gold lease owner in North Qld. The Mrs & kids have shared many a weekend on the lease with me chasing and finding the yellow stuff. Great way for a family to enjoy my hobby.

Been metal detecting with Minelab detectors for 20 years now and started my own lease about 2.5 years ago.

It's been a memorable experience for the family and I, but we are looking now at moving interstate so I'll probably be selling my gold show WIWO in the near future.

PJ

 

[HeadsUp]

what are the biggest things you learnt from it ?

plus side and down side ?

 

[WalnLiz]

Welcome to the forum PJ. Great to hear the family getting involved with the hobby, and having a lease would certainly make life a lot easier on the access side. Looking forward to your tales from up north and best of luck with the lease.

Cheers Wal.

 

[kuskus]

G'day and welcome PJ.

Can I say you will make a few people jealous here. Haha

Where abouts in north Qld is the lease? I ask as I'm looking into 1 up that way (240kms north west of cairns), I would love to buy it and work it full time.

I have a million questions to ask, ha don't know where to start. :/

What type of gear are you using and was it hard getting into owning your own lease in qld?

Have you made back what the lease costa and what's the regulations on dredging on yip our own lease in qld?

Thanks mate but there's going to be more lol

 

[AtomRat]

Welcome mate! It must be amazing having a claim with the fam

 

[WestOstrich!]

G'day PJ, I'm more than happy to be your first bit assistance giving! I am in the process of testing various properties to purchase, scrape n detect. Would be really keen to hear of your trials and tribulations!

Cheers

 

[The Green Wanderer]

Welcome to the forum pj,
Hopefully we dont innundate you with too many questions but there are more than a few hobbyist prospectors here in nq and around oz that would love to know more about setting up and maintaining a small mining lease - myself incuded.
Looking forward to reading some of your 1st hand insight.
Btw feel free to come along to the coffee/ forum meet we have once a month at the nq miners den if you feel inclined. The next one is on the 20th of sept.
Cheers, TGW

 

[Gregupnorth]

Hi PJ Would love to here more about your adventure's up in NQ . Cheers Greg

 

[PJ]

My lease is west of Charters Towers.

If I could go back and change 1 thing I'd have pegged more ground initially. I pegged it after years of good wet seasons and the grass was shoulder high......now its in drought i see I'm surrounded by dry blowings and other workings.....these weren't visible when I had visited many times before.

It's been a huge learning curve to deal with gov depts, land owners, source my wet plant from interstate, digging equipment, buildin a camp (comfortable enough for the kids and Mrs) and learning to read the ground and the layers of wash/clay/bedrock etc.

If you can find a trusted mentor for this - it'll help greatly. I was fortunate that I did.

2 things you need to decide on when setting up a small lease

- is it for hobby purposes or do you really want to work it to add/replace an income for you?
- are you content with a scrape and rape approach or .....like me, want to process every bit of dirt as to not waste a speck of the precious yellow stuff?

I've enjoyed the machinery (adapting, breakdowns, problem solving) & building the camp sides of the lease, as well as the gold at the end. I'd encourage anyone to give it a go, but it is $$$ tricky at times when its out of your family budget.

 

[Jaros]

Hi PJ welcome. I too would like to hear some of your tales of "woe or yahoo". Must have a pretty devoted wife and kids to hang in out there but then again the kids wouldn't mind so much and the wife needs to have a David Jones / Myer store handy.
Good luck with what you want to do and i hope its smooth transition into the future.
Jack

 

[cracka]

Welcome to the forum PJ,
Im sure i will be firing a few questions your way also. Like -How deep do you find most of the gold up that way? What is the best coloured clay to look for? etc. I think i know how you feel about the worked land. I just found some private property that im allowed on on the Turon River at Turondale but just reading a great book (The Glint Of Gold) and found out the property is right where all the aluvial mining was going on back in 1860s (three hotels on the property). Not only that but the chinese apparently went through there pretty thoroughly, they dont leave much. But i will still give it a try to find any they missed (or couldnt carry) and any that has been washed down in the last 155 yrs. :/