nero_design
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[size=small]These pictures have a considerable amount of detail in them so feel free to click on the thumbnails to see them in their proper scale.[/size]
I've been over in Canada for a while caching up with family and researching the Klondike Goldfields for a future visit but it got me warmed up for a trip to the Goldfields here as soon as I got back to Australia. I've been itching to go out there too since winter was either below or near zero in my favourite places. Since Spring has set in, the arid weather out on the NSW Goldfields has begun to warm slightly and I had to wait a few days for the rain to subside before heading out on a clear day. My plan was to pan the river in three or four areas and examine some new zones which I wanted to photograph for another project . I figured I'd bring the X-Terra 70 along with me since this is also Nugget country. Plenty of smaller 3+ gram nuggets left but occasionally the locals pull up a few within the 3 ounce range.
[attachment 107863 IMG_4612.jpg]
[size=small]The Junction at House Number One.[/size]
A friend wanted to see how fuel efficient his new car would be on a long trip and so we drove out in his vehicle and spent a few hours driving from the city out to the country. We stopped for breakfast and then continued onto the rural roads which I was keen to explore. An hour later we ended up alongside the river and I was more than a little disappointed to find that the river had not only risen from the recent rains, but it had formed some white-water rapids which were impossible to cross on foot without considerable risk. It also meant that I couldn't get to the soil near the bedrock on the riverside where panners find the larger volumes of gold granules. I split a couple of larger rocks to pan the soil which had built up in the cracks from water flow and there were a few chunky bits of gold in each pan. Nothing worth my time really. Just a few elongated flakes about 2mm long. Sluicers had left some deep holes near the river banks but even they were partially submerged with the risen waters. A few city folk visit these rural areas with the intent on finding some larger chunks of Gold themselves yet they are always guarded and even nervous when anyone comes across them. I only saw one other Prospector out there and he turned around and drove out of the area when he saw the height of the river.
[attachment 107859 IMG_4584.jpg]
[size=small]Large, Venomous Centipede.[/size]
So I turned on the X-Terra 70 with the smaller 6" coil attached and poked around on the riverbanks and around some of the weathered rocks and soil where Australia's first Prospectors and miners had clearly been working a long time ago. A hundred and fifty years of moss and lichen has since coated many of them, making the place an interesting haven for lizards and snakes as well as a number of inquisitive insects. I came across an exceptionally large centipede which was hunting for food amongst the rocks and took a few pictures. The tweezers I was using to hold his head were not as long as I would have preferred and I ended up letting him go so I could move on.
I recently heard from another Australian X-Terra 70 user who was getting a lot of phantom signals and random TID numbers with their own detector and so I deliberately set my own to the same settings to see how it would perform. I increased the Sensitivity to maximum (30) and the X-Terra was just babbling incoherently at every single swing. The ground was far too noisy for the X-Terra at maximum sensitivity so I had to reduce it to a more manageable "24" before continuing. I explored an area where a buldozer had extracted soil alonglide the diggings and found nothing but human trash and iron and foil junk virtually everywhere.
[attachment 107860 IMG_4661.jpg]
[size=small]Two Wild Emus.[/size]
We drove to the nearest town and bought a couple of exceptionally large hamburgers and examined some of the locally found gold and nuggets which were on sale in most of the milkbars and cafes in the area and bought some cold drinks before moving on. I saw some wild Emus drinking water in a paddock and stopped to photograph them ...and some kangaroos with baby joeys alongside (and in their pouches) were seen regularly throughout the day.
It was around midday and I felt we could drive another hundred kilometers to where i knew some old goldmines were located in the deep bushland.
[attachment 107862 IMG_4631.jpg]
[size=small]Very cool Rock formation.[/size]
The drive through the Rural areas is always very beautiful and I have to admire the scenery which is so contrasted compared to the congested roads and endless concrete of the city views. Some places we passed were once the site of calico tent cities (such as the rock formation location in the picture above) numbering over ten thousand people in the 1850s. These days it's mostly private leases with "Keep Out" signs posted everywhere. Years of thoughtless detectorists and cunning "candlejacks" entering their property without permission has resulted in a stern response from locals. More than a few homestead owners are still very happy to allow the detectorists to scan their properties for a fee of $10 per day... a fee which I find quite reasonable since all the easy gold nuggets have probably been found and won over the last 20 years.
[attachment 107861 IMG_4680.jpg]
[size=small]A Friendly Frog.[/size]
We arrived at my next choice of location in the mountains to the Eastern edges of the Goldfields here. Parking the car, we refitted our gear and emergency supplies before heading off an old fire trail into the bush. We were making our way into a valley where silver and gold mines were once located. I switched coils on the X-Terra 70 to the more suitable Elliptical 5x10" DD HF coil. Again, with the Sensitivity turned up high, all I got was constant feedback from the highly mineralized soils. I turned the Sensitivity down the 24 and then to the Preset value of 22 before continuing and the numbers became more stable on the iron saturated mud we were walking on.
I dug a few targets with the help of my city slicker friend. He was keen to explore the region and was equally keen to help me collect a specimen of the nasty (and sometimes lethal) Jack Jumper ants which had stung me one before on a nearby mountain earlier this year. We found most of the heavy metal items in this "pristine" area were from recreational hunters. Bits of foil screamed loud and clear on the coil and the X-Terra found some .22 shells and a lead slug which was flattened out but appeared to be .22 caliber as well. A few old threaded screws and a tiny galvanized washer about a cm long came out of the creeks on the sides of the mountains but no gold. I carefully panned a couple of the creeks which were flowing strongly but only found a few smaller specks of gold. I was too high up on the mountain to get good prospects in the creeks. All the good material would be lower down in the deeper valleys and the sun was dropping low so I called it a day.
[attachment 107864 IMG_4688.jpg]
[size=small]Spring Sunset over the Gum Trees.[/size]
Walking back up to the ridge where we'd parked the car carrying all the water and equipment was not as tough this time about since I'd been doing a fair bit of walking in my hilly neighborhood over the last week so I'd be in better condition this time to haul gear uphill. It made a difference too. I was examining a termite mound when the ground I was standing on gave way and collapsed slightly ... and out of the soil poured hundred of those horrible ants (technically a type of wingless wasp) and I did a merry dance back to the track but this time was unstung, despite my mishap.
Some kangaroos had gathered near the car but fled when we appeared out of the bush. I was a little disappointed not to find gold this trip out although the rising of the river was not something I had expected. And the areas I was detecting in were obviously trash laden from years of thoughtless visitors. Even the more remote location I visited at the end of the day.
Fuel is getting more expensive and I'm sure the economy is going to make long trips to the country something of a luxury in the coming days.
This trip was a bit of a failure in terms of detecting AND panning.... but I got some of the pictures which I needed for my other projects and it was nice to be out in the country air. Hope to get out again before it gets too hot for summer.
Regards,
Marco
I've been over in Canada for a while caching up with family and researching the Klondike Goldfields for a future visit but it got me warmed up for a trip to the Goldfields here as soon as I got back to Australia. I've been itching to go out there too since winter was either below or near zero in my favourite places. Since Spring has set in, the arid weather out on the NSW Goldfields has begun to warm slightly and I had to wait a few days for the rain to subside before heading out on a clear day. My plan was to pan the river in three or four areas and examine some new zones which I wanted to photograph for another project . I figured I'd bring the X-Terra 70 along with me since this is also Nugget country. Plenty of smaller 3+ gram nuggets left but occasionally the locals pull up a few within the 3 ounce range.
[attachment 107863 IMG_4612.jpg]
[size=small]The Junction at House Number One.[/size]
A friend wanted to see how fuel efficient his new car would be on a long trip and so we drove out in his vehicle and spent a few hours driving from the city out to the country. We stopped for breakfast and then continued onto the rural roads which I was keen to explore. An hour later we ended up alongside the river and I was more than a little disappointed to find that the river had not only risen from the recent rains, but it had formed some white-water rapids which were impossible to cross on foot without considerable risk. It also meant that I couldn't get to the soil near the bedrock on the riverside where panners find the larger volumes of gold granules. I split a couple of larger rocks to pan the soil which had built up in the cracks from water flow and there were a few chunky bits of gold in each pan. Nothing worth my time really. Just a few elongated flakes about 2mm long. Sluicers had left some deep holes near the river banks but even they were partially submerged with the risen waters. A few city folk visit these rural areas with the intent on finding some larger chunks of Gold themselves yet they are always guarded and even nervous when anyone comes across them. I only saw one other Prospector out there and he turned around and drove out of the area when he saw the height of the river.
[attachment 107859 IMG_4584.jpg]
[size=small]Large, Venomous Centipede.[/size]
So I turned on the X-Terra 70 with the smaller 6" coil attached and poked around on the riverbanks and around some of the weathered rocks and soil where Australia's first Prospectors and miners had clearly been working a long time ago. A hundred and fifty years of moss and lichen has since coated many of them, making the place an interesting haven for lizards and snakes as well as a number of inquisitive insects. I came across an exceptionally large centipede which was hunting for food amongst the rocks and took a few pictures. The tweezers I was using to hold his head were not as long as I would have preferred and I ended up letting him go so I could move on.
I recently heard from another Australian X-Terra 70 user who was getting a lot of phantom signals and random TID numbers with their own detector and so I deliberately set my own to the same settings to see how it would perform. I increased the Sensitivity to maximum (30) and the X-Terra was just babbling incoherently at every single swing. The ground was far too noisy for the X-Terra at maximum sensitivity so I had to reduce it to a more manageable "24" before continuing. I explored an area where a buldozer had extracted soil alonglide the diggings and found nothing but human trash and iron and foil junk virtually everywhere.
[attachment 107860 IMG_4661.jpg]
[size=small]Two Wild Emus.[/size]
We drove to the nearest town and bought a couple of exceptionally large hamburgers and examined some of the locally found gold and nuggets which were on sale in most of the milkbars and cafes in the area and bought some cold drinks before moving on. I saw some wild Emus drinking water in a paddock and stopped to photograph them ...and some kangaroos with baby joeys alongside (and in their pouches) were seen regularly throughout the day.
It was around midday and I felt we could drive another hundred kilometers to where i knew some old goldmines were located in the deep bushland.
[attachment 107862 IMG_4631.jpg]
[size=small]Very cool Rock formation.[/size]
The drive through the Rural areas is always very beautiful and I have to admire the scenery which is so contrasted compared to the congested roads and endless concrete of the city views. Some places we passed were once the site of calico tent cities (such as the rock formation location in the picture above) numbering over ten thousand people in the 1850s. These days it's mostly private leases with "Keep Out" signs posted everywhere. Years of thoughtless detectorists and cunning "candlejacks" entering their property without permission has resulted in a stern response from locals. More than a few homestead owners are still very happy to allow the detectorists to scan their properties for a fee of $10 per day... a fee which I find quite reasonable since all the easy gold nuggets have probably been found and won over the last 20 years.
[attachment 107861 IMG_4680.jpg]
[size=small]A Friendly Frog.[/size]
We arrived at my next choice of location in the mountains to the Eastern edges of the Goldfields here. Parking the car, we refitted our gear and emergency supplies before heading off an old fire trail into the bush. We were making our way into a valley where silver and gold mines were once located. I switched coils on the X-Terra 70 to the more suitable Elliptical 5x10" DD HF coil. Again, with the Sensitivity turned up high, all I got was constant feedback from the highly mineralized soils. I turned the Sensitivity down the 24 and then to the Preset value of 22 before continuing and the numbers became more stable on the iron saturated mud we were walking on.
I dug a few targets with the help of my city slicker friend. He was keen to explore the region and was equally keen to help me collect a specimen of the nasty (and sometimes lethal) Jack Jumper ants which had stung me one before on a nearby mountain earlier this year. We found most of the heavy metal items in this "pristine" area were from recreational hunters. Bits of foil screamed loud and clear on the coil and the X-Terra found some .22 shells and a lead slug which was flattened out but appeared to be .22 caliber as well. A few old threaded screws and a tiny galvanized washer about a cm long came out of the creeks on the sides of the mountains but no gold. I carefully panned a couple of the creeks which were flowing strongly but only found a few smaller specks of gold. I was too high up on the mountain to get good prospects in the creeks. All the good material would be lower down in the deeper valleys and the sun was dropping low so I called it a day.
[attachment 107864 IMG_4688.jpg]
[size=small]Spring Sunset over the Gum Trees.[/size]
Walking back up to the ridge where we'd parked the car carrying all the water and equipment was not as tough this time about since I'd been doing a fair bit of walking in my hilly neighborhood over the last week so I'd be in better condition this time to haul gear uphill. It made a difference too. I was examining a termite mound when the ground I was standing on gave way and collapsed slightly ... and out of the soil poured hundred of those horrible ants (technically a type of wingless wasp) and I did a merry dance back to the track but this time was unstung, despite my mishap.
Some kangaroos had gathered near the car but fled when we appeared out of the bush. I was a little disappointed not to find gold this trip out although the rising of the river was not something I had expected. And the areas I was detecting in were obviously trash laden from years of thoughtless visitors. Even the more remote location I visited at the end of the day.
Fuel is getting more expensive and I'm sure the economy is going to make long trips to the country something of a luxury in the coming days.
This trip was a bit of a failure in terms of detecting AND panning.... but I got some of the pictures which I needed for my other projects and it was nice to be out in the country air. Hope to get out again before it gets too hot for summer.
Regards,
Marco