“DOWN THE HILL” YARROW CREEK, NEAR GLEN INNES NSW AUSTRALIA

LIST OF ALL BLOG ENTRIES TO DATE

10.2 and 4.9 carat sapphires

Thanks to Google Earth. "Down the Hill" is in the centre

Many visitors to Glen Innes have enjoyed a day’s fossicking at “Down the Hill”, both on our Wednesday Baptist Church trips and during Minerama. I’ve written about the place in two previous blog entries (Quartz at Down the Hill and The Big Sapphire). Several videos have also covered the area (one, two and three). Click on the links to go there. 

                      “Down the Hill” lies downstream of “Through the Fence” and upstream of “Underground River”.

Down the Hill is an area with many rocky outcrops and, most notably, an abandoned channel through which the creek only flows in flood. At one time this was the most productive area, but the old diggings have mostly filled with sand and no-one seems too keen to spend the day removing it when they could search among the rocks. At the lower end of the channel the wash was at least two metres below the overlying sand. The last we saw of it, there was lots of black jack and    

Cliff O'Brien digging in the old channel 1998

presumably gems, but we were beaten by inflowing water and finally by a flood which filled up the hole with sand. Maybe one day, during a drought, fossickers will get another chance to experience the thrill of working this spot.

At some time, probably in the 1960’s, a small mining operation operated at Down the Hill. There was the remains of a shed or hut when I first visited the place in 1988 but hardly any sign of actual mining. This was on the flat immediately below where we parked. The only other sign of previous visitation was a Tamworth 1 pint milk bottle I found in the creek just below old hut site.

4.3 carat sapphire, 11.6 carat zircon (July 2008)

One day's small finds - December 2009

The gemstones are the usual ones for Yarrow Creek – sapphire, zircon, pyrope garnet, the occasional topaz and enstatite and, of course, quartz. My one and only cuttable ruby came from here, as well as my largest sapphire, best dog’s tooth crystal and biggest quartz 

0.3 carat ruby

Snowing July 2008

crystal. This is more a    reflection of the sheer quantity of wash we found than its superior  quality.

It’s a place I have never tired of visiting.

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Snowing: July 2008 - the same day as the gemstone group above was found! July 2008

THE BOTTOM END, YARROW CREEK NEAR GLEN INNES NSW AUSTRALIA

THE BOTTOM END, YARROW CREEK

 NEAR GLEN INNES NSW AUSTRALIA

Working the crack

This place takes its name from the simple fact that it is the bottom end of the property where we have often fossicked. Upstream from it is the place we call The Blockup and below, in the next property, is the Old Mine.

This stretch of the creek begins with a long pool, followed by a short section of rocky ground before the creek passes through another pool. After this there are more rocks and pools with some places where the creek vanishes beneath the rocks, before you come to the boundary fence.

The first pool looks deep but that’s about all I know about it. The first rocky section has been well fossicked but possibilities remain for new ground on the left bank. The landowner told me once that, years ago, the creek had been dammed in a dry season at the end of the first pool before the second pool had been pumped out. No doubt some good finds were made. You could hardly fail in a place like that. Not knowing about that event, I tried some of the more obvious spots and scored some cutters. One was a sapphire piece of 

The lower end of the first pool

around 10 carats which I told Sue was tourmaline until I took it up to her with the next sieve. As it turned out, one end was very dark, the rest was blue. I’ve been holding off writing this blog entry as I wanted to include a photograph of it. Sorry, I must have sold it with some other blues before we moved away from Glen Innes.

Minerama 2010 finds

Most of our fossicking here happened around 2002-3 and I have no photos of finds from that time. Probably our best find came immediately after Minerama in March 2010. A few good finds were made on the Monday trip just below the end of the first pool. Two weeks later I worked on a crack which crossed the creek, using a yabby pump to get all I could out of it. The first finds included some good clear quartz (no fossicker I know throws that back again) so I was confident that there were better things to follow. The photo shows that I wasn’t disappointed. The following week produced some more, but that was it for that particular crack. No doubt there is more to come.

See the Blog entries for The Blockup and the Old Mine for more information.

My You Tube video on The Bottom End may be found here . 

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Good finds from the crack described above (one day's work)

THE BLOCKUP, YARROW CREEK NEAR GLEN INNES NSW AUSTRALIA

THE BLOCKUP, YARROW CREEK NEAR GLEN INNES NSW AUSTRALIA

In the Blog on “Sue’s Favourite Spot”, I included an image showing the long “straight”, in Yarrow Creek, which finishes where the creek makes a right angle bend into the Blockup. This is an area of granite where the water flows through a narrow (30-40 cm) channel and continues under granite boulders before emptying into a long pool. This pool finishes at the spot we know as “The Bottom End”.

Much of the creek bed above the Blockup consists of submerged rocky areas and lengthy reedy sections. It looks uninviting and so we have generally left it alone. Those few places where we have fossicked have been the most accessible ones and they have basically had a flat granite bottom (sometimes entirely weathered) with few cracks or holes. I don’t think we left much behind in these spots.

Nevertheless, there is a long section of unprospected creek waiting for a dry season to lower the water level. It can drop more than a metre, so there must be other channels in the Blockup for the water to escape through.

 The finds have been the same as elsewhere, that is, sapphire, zircon and garnet in amongst heaps of black spinel with an occasional piece of topaz. Waterworn clear and smoky quartz turns up frequently. There must be heaps more of these amongst the rocks and beneath the reeds. 

Check out my video of fossicking at the Blockup here .

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6 carat "jelly bean" sapphire from the Blockup

THE CROSSING, YARROW CREEK NEAR GLEN INNES NSW AUSTRALIA

THE CROSSING, YARROW CREEK NEAR GLEN INNES NSW AUSTRALIA

The Crossing (C), The Cascades (L) and the Black Jack Hole (R)

Readers will have noticed that we have given names to the various locations along Yarrow Creek where we have taken fossicking groups over the years. There are 14 named places and this has turned out to be a useful way of describing where particular gems have been found or to let regulars know where we intended to go next week.

The Crossing is one of the first places to which I took groups for Minerama field trips. It marks the point where 2 wheel drive vehicles can go no further and even 4 wheel drives would have trouble with it today. The landowner now uses the place we know as the Upper Crossing. 

The finds that started it all. March 2007

I had not paid a great deal of attention to this spot believing it to have been well worked over on those earlier trips, until I observed a fossicker on another trip removing a few rocks from a hole in the bed of the creek. He had some nice gems, including some topaz, and I determined to pay it a visit on one of our regular Glen Innes Baptist Church outings. It was then that I realised what we had been missing.

9 carat garnet September 2007

January 2008

There is a series of cracks running across the creek and each of these has been followed under the bank until the overburden has become too great.   There are also several holes jammed up with granite boulders which have yet to be cleared out, if they ever can be. 

We always seemed to be beaten by a combination of factors – the weight of the rocks, the depth of the water and the problem of where to put the rocks if we ever got them out. Maybe future fossickers will succeed where we have failed.

There are other possible traps in old channels or beneath deep sand. Who knows?

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30 carat sapphire January 2000

Finds from my last fossicking day at The Crossing - February 2012

“THROUGH THE FENCE”, YARROW CREEK NEAR GLEN INNES NEW SOUTH WALES AUSTRALIA

“THROUGH THE FENCE”, YARROW CREEK 

NEAR GLEN INNES NEW SOUTH WALES AUSTRALIA

This location takes its name from the fact that an old wire fence runs next to the entire length of the place. As we got to know it better, we began to call parts of the creek further upstream “Through the Fence Extended”. It merges with the next productive area upstream which we know as “The Old Mine” at a point where the creek moves away from the fence. Downstream becomes “Down the Hill” where the fence crosses the creek.

I can identify 6 or 7 distinct sites where gemstones were most common and one of these yielded 3 sapphires each more than 30 carats in weight. Of these, I sold one blue for $330, the only time I’ve been persuaded to part with a really good stone. An almost identical stone was found by one of our group in the same place several weeks before. There are still several areas where little has been found yet and these need closer examination.

The creek in this stretch, just as almost everywhere else, is confined in a granite channel. There is only one small sandy area and no pools deep enough to make fossicking impossible. I expect that there will be many good finds amongst the rocks in the years ahead.

My finds from one fossicking day at Through the Fence

Visit my YouTube site here for videos on gem hunting in the Glen Innes district, including one on "Through the Fence" (here). 

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ROCKY BEND, YARROW CREEK NEAR GLEN INNES NEW SOUTH WALES AUSTRALIA

ROCKY BEND, YARROW CREEK NEAR GLEN INNES 

NEW SOUTH WALES AUSTRALIA

Rocky Bend is a location which few of those who have come out on the Baptist Church Wednesday fossicking trips would ever have heard of. In fact, the last time we went there was in April 2007. The main problem was the distance we needed to walk from our cars. At Minerama that year it had been possible to get there in 4 WD vehicles but the track was basically non-existent and in any case conditions were drier than normal that year and we always had other good locations elsewhere on Yarrow Creek.

Readers need to be reminded that this is all private property. 

The site is about a 15 minute walk downstream from the Yarrow Creek bridge on the Mt Slow road. There is no gate. Keep to the left bank because the property boundary basically follows the creek. About 100 metres below the bridge the water is backed up by rocks at Rocky Bend so basically the creek is one continuous pool from there down. It’s my belief that the creek formerly flowed on the other side of a rocky ridge from near the bridge, but as that is on a different property this hypothesis is yet to be checked out.

Minerama 2007 find

A group effort at Minerama 2007

The main dig at Minerama 2007 was where the stream channel is choked with sand up against a large rock outcrop. Digging revealed lots of gravel, frequently embedded in white clay, and rich in black jack and gem stones. Keeping the sand out of the underwater hole is the main problem. There is a lot of good potential along this stretch of the creek.

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Song Studies. Bible studies based on hymns and songs

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Shoalhaven District Geology.

My finds from the Minerama 2007 day

THE BLACK JACK HOLE, YARROW CREEK NEW SOUTH WALES AUSTRALIA

THE BLACK JACK HOLE, YARROW CREEK NEW SOUTH WALES AUSTRALIA

This is the next productive area upstream from the Glory Hole in Yarrow Creek. I don’t recall actually seeing it until 2006 simply because in walking to the Glory Hole we had always cut off the bend in which the Black Jack Hole is located. When I first fossicked there, it was immediately obvious that there was a large amount of black spinel in a hole just below a rock on which any self respecting fossickers would have upended their sieves. We clearly weren’t the first to fossick there.

Nevertheless, the place has continued to produce cutters of all the typical Yarrow Creek gemstones – in cracks, under rocks, in scratchy areas under tea trees – and I have no doubt there are many more there yet.

One of my first jobs was to try to lower the water level, even just a little bit, to make it easier to work in the deeper water. This involved digging a channel through a sand blockage which was forcing the water to flow over a nearby rock bar. There are times when a 10 or 20 cm drop makes all the difference and this was one of them. There is probably more that can be done there yet.

One curious event happened after I had been taking groups there over several years. Unexpectedly, small, highly polished pieces of what I assume is rhodolite garnet began to turn up in one spot. Over several visits I found at least 20, some of them in the top sieve. I assume that someone on one of our Wednesday trips deliberately “salted” the spot with a sprinkling of tumbled garnet. Thanks, whoever it was – it made a change from finding pyrope garnet (the unpolished variety). Throw some gold nuggets in next time, please.

Visit my YouTube site here where you will find a video of the Black Jack Hole in the collection. 

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Limestone Caves of NSW

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Song Studies. Bible studies based on hymns and songs

https://www.blogger.com/blog/posts/1515863000684737715

Shoalhaven District Geology.