Staggy Creek Fossicking Area

A public fossicking reserve on a diamond-bearing deep lead in the volcanic country south of Inverell, close to Copeton Dam. The ground is one of the few places in New South Wales where fossickers stand a genuine chance of turning up an alluvial diamond, alongside black tourmaline, topaz and quartz. It's rough, dry sieving work — there's little water and no facilities — set among the granite and basalt gravels that made the district a nineteenth-century tin field. It is free to fossick and open to visitors year-round.