A common pastime for many Australians is to go gold fossicking. Increasingly however, Australian gold fields have been picked clean by the weekend prospector.
With the rivers low before the spring snow thaw, I took the opportunity to brave the cold and scout a few new areas.
In what I would call a very remote Otago river valley I stumbled upon two Australian visitors who were prospecting with the latest Minelab metal detector. A long conversation revealed that it is becoming common among the Australian gold detecting community to holiday in New Zealand with their metal detectors. The theory is that most New Zealand amateur gold prospectors do not use metal detectors giving Australians an advantage.
As this video shows, some New Zealand gold fossickers do use detectors but generally speaking the Australians are correct. New Zealand gold fossickers use sluices and gold pans in or very close to rivers. The advantage of metal detectors are that you can prospect up the river valley walls and not be restricted by the need to have running water.