A plan to encourage more grey nomads and other travellers to visit the Northern Territory town of Tennant Creek has struck gold … literally!
The town’s public fossicking area, which is about the size of a football field, had become depleted after many years of no maintenance work being carried out. However, the NT Department of Mines and Energy recently skimmed about half a metre of ground off the top of the area and turned it over. The rejuvenation and expansion of the area paid instant dividends with gold nuggets apparently already having been found.
“I understand, anecdotally, that there have been a number of nuggets found since the area has been refreshed.” Mike Fawcett from the NT Department of Mines and Energy told the ABC.
Mr Fawcett said the area was never a large scale gold prospect but that it appeared there was a reasonable amount of alluvial gold (flakes and dust) which was what the detectors were chasing now.
He told the ABC he hoped the renewal work would attract more gold prospectors to the area and, to some extent, turn a Northern Territory government liability into an asset.
While there is a finite amount of ground within the fossicking area, searching for gold there will apparently be worthwhile for ‘quite a few more years’.
not many detectorist would be interested in flakes or dust and the area would be done over in 1 week by one detector.not interested I’m afraid.