School access to local gold mine sites

[Amymarks]

Hello,

I am a history teacher in a primary school in grafton and I will be teaching the topic of 'gold mining' to the students in years 3 - 6 next term. I would love to make the experience real for them and take the students to a real life site of gold mining within our local area, which I understand to be very prevalent.

I noticed that there was Georges gold mine near Coramba which is now closed. I have found for people with off road access they are able to access many other sites but I am hoping to receive a contact of somebody within the Coffs Harbour/clarence region that may be able to help to guide us in the right direction. Is there any other sites that have reasonable access for a school group? I believe we would require a permit. If you could shed any light on this, it would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you in advance

Amy marks

 

[silver]

https://www.prospectingaustralia.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=15072
if you can't find anything acceptable at all, you could equate the price you would spend with what you could get from digger tom for the same price, and just set yourselves up at a creek a walk away from school (or a $5 bus trip each) and everyone could have a go at panning the same concentrates over a big tub ,... that way you won't loose gold except into the big tub so you could save your resources to use year after year that way, if it's just one class at a time or a small school cohort you would only need a couple of pans, and when I child finishes take photos and then add a bit of sand to the pan from your tub to top it up for the next child, and repeat the process, they'll all get the experience and a photo (get em to dress up like miners for the trip), and you'll still have the gold and sand at the end, just tip the water off your big tub, saving the concentrates for when you get home to have a go yourself and dry em out to put away for next year. Would be a good resource if utilised correctly.
My apologies for all the punctuation, you being a teacher and all !
Maybe the several packet deal if you go with digger toms concentrates.

 

[Heatho]

Hi Amy,

The only place I can really think of would be "Three Creeks" tourist gold mine near Bingara, it is a working goldmine but is nearly 300km from Grafton which is probably way too far. I really don't think there are any more places like that up your way. A lot of the time Sydney school groups go out to Hill End which is a similar distance as Bingara is from your location. Check out this link for info on Three Creeks and give them a call if you're interested.
http://www.bingara.com.au/index.cfm?page_id=1215

The Coffs/Clarence goldfields is they are generally very rugged and overgrown, usually in very thick jungle/bush, these are not really the sorts of places you would want to take kids in my opinion, some old goldfields are very very dangerous with deep open shafts and crumbling/decaying ground that could be at risk of collapse. I've even stumbled into areas where I knew I've been in imminent danger and had to back of such areas very carefully.

One thing though is there are some old alluvial gold mines right on beaches near Grafton at Minnie Water and Diggers Headland, there was quite a lot of beach mining up in your area, though any relics or visible activity of mining is probably long gone. The three Yellow triangles on the map are the old mines.

You could try calling Coffs Harbour Tourist Information Centre also and see if they know of anything up there.

At places like Hill End and Mogo they do mine tours and there is a Gold Rush village at Mogo, but probably way too far for you with all the kids.

Alternately as Silver said, we have member here who sells bags of sluice concentrates and you could use them for panning out some gold, each bag does have gold and the members here who habe bought it reckon it's well worth it.

Hope you get something sorted out.

 

[Ramjet]

Just a random thought. You can buy little bags of "paydirt" and pan it off yourself to find the gold in it. One or 2 forum members sell paydirt. A good hands on experience for the children.

 

[limpalot]

I use one of those shell sand pits for the kids to pan into, plenty of room for the Quanta pan to move in. Sit it up on a table so your not bending over.
Cheers LL

 

[kawman]

some mine sites are very dangerous with open shafts ect and kids could get hurt.. x 3 on get a few pans and some paydirt to play with...can be used over and over, simply throw the gold back in and we are ready to go again..