Heading to Flinders! - Hunting for Killiecrankie Diamonds

G’day all

My wife and I are headed off for a Flinders Island adventure to look for Killiecrankie Diamonds.

We are keen fossickers and have had some luck searching for topaz and sapphires in the NE, but we’ve never been to Flinders before! We were wondering if we should apply the same principles as you would in the NE? (spots to dig, spinel etc).

Any tips at all would be much appreciated!

Cheers

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Hi @LachieR15,

I found good topaz by sieving in the creek that drains into Tanner Bay (I think it’s called Mines Creek). The locals will have better instructions, but I seem to recall the entrance to the old mining area being a couple of power poles past the Tanner Bay turn-off. Once there, I found a bit of topaz by just sieving the banks of a couple of the ponds left after mining, but did much better by walking over to the nearby creek, and walking downstream about 10 minutes. I got quite a lot of crystal-clear but not very big, angular topaz from shallow wash directly on bedrock.

Killiecrankie Bay is not far off, and it should have much bigger topaz, but I’ve never dug there. I think these days you have to wait for a very low tide and get wet, a bit like at Doctors Rocks.

As far as I recall there was no spinel like in the NE, just quartz and topaz. The topaz really stands out as it glows compared to the quartz.

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My memory is vague but I think I was in the same place Miguel mentioned with the old mining area, I was in the tailings of the Mt Tanner tin mine according to the locals who took me there. Plenty of small stuff sieving in the creek there up to 10mm. I saw a picture of somebody else’s finds digging at a beach and it was more like a handful of marbles, don’t know the exact spot though but probably Killiecrakie bay.

If your into fishing make sure you get up to north east river, spinning lures off the rocks up there we took salmon up to 80cm!

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Hi guys,

Thanks for the advice! We’ll definitely check out the creeks around the mining area. We’ve got a few days with the intention of spending most our time digging, so we’ll be able to hit the beach and the creek.

Unfortunately we won’t be doing any fishing this trip, ratters. We had a bit of trouble staying under the luggage weight with our shovels and pans and whatnot! Next time though :slight_smile: Might even consider bringing the car over on the barge.

Thanks again and hopefully we will be able to give a good update!

Cheers

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The barge is not a lot of fun. There are no facilities on board other than an urn for hot water and the trip can take up to 20h depending on tides.

I’ve had a better experience in the past just freighting stuff that I’ll need. The company used to be Furneaux Freight in Bridport. Probably still the same.

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Yikes! Maybe not then. For the most part, we have enough gear - we skipped on the gumboots though, as they were the most weighty. Will rethink that one next time.

An update on how we are going so far - we have gotten most of our material from Diamond Gully. Heaps of small stuff and one or two jelly beans. Mines Creek is proving hard to get to as it is very overgrown. Obvious paths in are hard to find. We’ve spent an hour or so trying to find a ‘safe’ way in, but didn’t have a lot of faith in being able to find our way out again. We’ve decided we’ll try to bush bash in over the next few days, as well as giving Killiecrankie Creek a go.

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There is a decent dirt road into Mines Creek, the locals should be able to point you to it. You access it from the main road to Northeast River, if I recall correctly.

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