Gold Rush!

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We've had a real mint time here in the lovely Arrowtown. Sadly, we've got to leave tomorrow to head over to Christchurch to sort out the van with Kea and hopefully get our buy-back deal completed before we fly out on 31st.

We're very near the end of our 6 months tour of NZ. It's gone way too quickly, and we feel we're just settling into the pikey dream. Guess what though, today we tried a bit of the old panning in the Arrow River and lo and behold we found a flake! A real genuine speck of gold glistening in the pan amongst the black sand!

When I say speck, I mean a smidgin dot, but it's gold nonetheless, which proves it's there to be had if you look hard enough. It's probably worth about 1 cent on the open market (although gold prices are rising, so perhaps 2 cents?!) but it's priceless to us as we found it. I've got the panning technique down to a fine art now, slowly washing off the concentrate until you're left with black magnetic sand, and gold if you're lucky!

So, we find gold on our last day in Arrowtown! Definitely have to come back here again for another try at panning.

We're looking forward to spending some time in Oz - we'll be there in a week! We've booked a Wicked Campervan for our journey from Sydney to Cairns. A sensible downsize from the Transit - who needs all that space anyway, or a shower and toilet? Bed and wheels, and a bit of room for the hamster, goat and cat we've acquired on our travels. Oh, and for all that gold we've panned from the Arrow.

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Photos

We Found Gold!
The huge nugget (speck) to the right of the shop-bought gold is our precious find!

Arrow River Walk
Part of the film set for Lord of the Rings apparently

Campsite Cat
'See, Clarence, my wife won't let me bid on the Augusta on eBay, starting bid $4.6 mil.'