The last month has been interesting so I thought that I would share some of my experiences. The 6" gold seeker was sent back the day after my last post. It is still at Coiltek and I am yet to hear from them, despite an enquiring email sent by me. What to do?
Before Christmas my 10x5" elliptical showed potential by finding lots of shot. It was time to teach it to find gold. I also had some other goals to achieve. My wife has been doing some painting lessons in Heathcote and I have been dropping her off and spending the day detecting. Goal No1. Find gold at Heathcote (this place had only ever yielded trash and an 1835 shilling). Another goal was to find a piece in consecutive outings, as well as more than one piece in an outing. I also though it would be good to find a piece that weighed at least a gram.
When the 6" gold seeker was in operation, I had been slowly working my way along a line of diggings that spans about three kilometres. I chose this as a likely spot because I thought that the old diggers would not persist in this way, if they were not finding anything. I was using my GPS to keep track of my progress and I had also printed a map from Geovic. I marked my progress and finds on the map. After a while a pattern began to emerge in my journal and on my map. The long line of diggings is crossed a few times by a track that then moves away and crosses again further south in more than one spot. I found that once I got a distance of some three or four hundred metres away from the crossings, I would start to pick up some targets and then maybe a small piece of gold. There were other signs that began to emerge also. The VB and Jim Beam cans were obvious signs that these heaps had been detected before. The track is not marked on my maps, so it was a surprise to me when I first encountered it. I had taken the long road on foot all the way down the gully. Each time I encountered the track crossing the gully I found the tell tale signs of detectorists. VB and Jim Beam cans and lots of dig holes. It slowly became obvious (VB and Jim Beam cans) that the people before me knew of the track and at each crossing spent some time detecting in both directions North and South. It explained why I was only finding stuff on a few mullock heaps and occasionally picking up a bit of gold here and there. Thursday 16th Feb. I worked well South of one of the crossings finding little in the way of targets until I picked up two nails and a bit of shot. Then a clear quiet target in the middle of the ring of dirt around a hole. A small piece of gold, 0.053 grams. I thought that this was the start of a run of undetected territory but after a few pieces of shot on the next two or three mullock heaps the piles of dirt were silent again. Unbeknown to me I was in range of another track crossing. Monday 20th Feb. a coolish day with a chance to explore more of the diggings. The day started slowly because I was approaching the next crossing but once past this I started to find some flat bits of metal and the occasional piece of shot. A nice quiet but unmistakeable signal yielded a small nugget of 0.075grams. In a very short distance the heaps were yielding nothing again. Wednesday 22nd Feb, was a trip to Heathcote. On my previous outing I made a fatal error of judgement. I parked the car and walked half a kilometre along some diggings and started. I found shot straight away but I worked my way back to the car and as I did the targets slowly dried up for sure. This day I would start and work away from the car. Through out the morning I slowly accumulated shot over twenty bits. Late in the day I got a signal and thought that it was another bit. But I was pleased when I was down to dust that there was a small piece of Heathcote gold, all 0.016grams of it. I had achieved a few goals. Three bits in three consecutive outings and my first bit of Heathcote gold.
The three bits on the left are my Hat-trick nuggets from top to bottom 0.016, 0.053, and 0.075grams. The other two are another story. Friday 3rd Mar I had a small window of opportunity to fit in two hours detecting. No time for exploring, I needed somewhere easily accessible. Back on Australia day I had some friends come and stay. While my wife and his went to view an art show, we men went detecting. My friend drives an Xterra 750. We went North along the same run of diggings that I had been following. We found some shot and bits of trash. Well some would say we did a good job or maybe not because on my return to this spot I only dug two targets both gold. One 0.045grams and 0.135 grams. They were on the mullock heaps but not in obvious places. I think that I found them because I had only planned to do the heaps that we did in the morning and I did them carefully without any thought of covering a lot of ground. So only one more objective to go; find a piece that weighs at least one gram. But I wouldn't mind finding an 'ouncer'. So the stock standard 10x5" can find gold. If the 6" coil doesn't come back soon the 10x5" will hit the lead. The score for the 6" coil since January 1st is 6 bits from 14 outings. The old stock standard blue has 5 bits from 10 outings. Wow I have been doing some detecting lately. But quite a few of those outings have been quick two hour stints late in the day. If you're a Eureka user like me and would really like an SDC but can't afford one just persist and work to a plan. My plan was to follow the line of diggings (three kilometres of them) because I believed the old timers would not have continued for such a distance without finding gold. The evidence I found suggested that even modern day prospectors had been there but they did not get it all. My search along the diggings has come to an end. So three kilometre of diggings has produced nine small bits totalling less than a gram but it's given me a lot of fun mapping and solving the puzzle. Now I have to find another spot perhaps branch out and search higher up around the source.
Cheers Bob.
