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Flowerpot

Kerrie
Joined
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Hi just wondering if anyone has ever been robbed on the goldfields anywhere around Oz in recent years? I've heard stories of this possibly happening, not sure how much is fact or fiction though?
 
Its common to get vehicle break ins if you park it up in the bush and go walkabout.

But that happens anywhere.

You could fit an alarm or a strong box to lock up your detector.

Some people install protection systems , I favour the ever reliable gin trap in the drivers seat that snaps shut on the balls of the thief rendering them permanently scarred for life.

Their screams work just like an alarm , notifying the vehicle owner that there has been a security breach.
 
Don't have any first hand knowledge but never say never, I'm sure it's happened to some unfortunate soul in recent times. History books have many tales of people being robbed and as time passes history on this subject will be repeated imo. Greed is all to common through every generation.

Forgot to say this thread would be better posted in the general chat section, don't stress all good :Y: just a heads up.
 
A common one is being befriended in caravan parks by a couple. Things go well for a while, they take you to some spots and gain your confidence, you take them to spots, they show you thier gold you show them yours etc...

Then one day one of them cant make it for some reason and when you get back you've been done over and neither of them are to be found.
 
Thanks RM, yes this thread would def be better in general chat. I can be a right nong sometimes, Hoping to get this site worked out soonish. I tried to move this thread but it's not going anywheres. Dang nabbit.
It's good to always learn new stuff...
Hubbies still got a few rabbit traps, might be putting them to good use, set them up all around and in the troopy :eek:
 
madtuna said:
A common one is being befriended in caravan parks by a couple. Things go well for a while, they take you to some spots and gain your confidence, you take them to spots, they show you thier gold you show them yours etc...

Then one day one of them cant make it for some reason and when you get back you've been done over and neither of them are to be found.

Exactly right , I have met a couple of them.

The other variation is they tell you about their awesome spots that are giving up 10 grammars all day - that never had gold.

Because they want you to talk about your best spots.

And if they see you on ground where you are getting a little bit they will tell you there was 50 ounce nuggets being found at spot X (barren) because they hope you run over there and they can hit your spot while you are gone.

Sweet talkers with decades of experience at bullsheet are out there , one used to frequent this place and I admit it took me a couple of years to work out .
 
There is a section in general chat for Stolen Equipment, some rough stories in there, I think it was HeadsUp saying they have seen adults encouraging children to openly steal off campers in broad daylight at Oallen, I remember it because I was shocked reading it. Been quite a bit of gear go missing at Tuena too.

I don't think anyone here has ever reported being accosted to hand over gold? at the same time, I don't go flashing it around even if it's just a few grams in a vial or still in a snuffer. I did have a guy pick up a snuffer containing gold straight out of a pan that was sitting about 5m away from where I was working a highbanker, I turned my back for a second and it was my daughter who caught the guy and alerted me. He claimed he "just wanted to have a look" that he "had never seen real gold before". I told him he could have asked and to bugger off or words to that effect lol.

I would be very cautious about being approached out of the blue if I was dirt fishing in a known hotspot though, a mate of mine had two blokes in a 4WD sidle up to him in W.A (somewhere near Norseman) while he was out swinging his GPZ7000 on his yearly trip out there. He maintains there was something a bit off about them the way they were eying him off and quick firing questions at him asking if he was alone, where was he camped etc. So he acted pretty cool and spun a story that he was new to detecting and had just bought all the gear off eBay, had no idea what he was doing and then said he might as well head off, that his missus was waiting for him in his truck parked about 150m away. He crossed his fingers that they would not know how much electronics he was swinging.....or that he had already found enough nuggets to buy a new GPZ sitting in his satchel bag. Luck was on his side that day it turns out. They buggered off when they thought he was not alone.

Otherwise, I have only ever had a couple of pans pinched thankfully. Some kids, early teens grabbed a couple of el-cheapo crappy raised riffle pans from Aussie Disposals sitting in a tub, if they had asked I would have gladly given them to them, after you use a pan with a gravity trap/drop riffle pan you would never touch a raised riffle again, unless it was just to pan into, I do have a 17" Keene just for that.

I guess you just have to be alert, plenty of lowlifes that will take whats not bolted down, I was talking to a mate recently that was mowing his lawn, went inside to grab a cold one came back no more than 2 mins later to find his new self-propelled mower that he paid a fortune for was gone.
 
Yup.

Adults teaching and encouraging kids to steal (8-10 year old kids) , including crawling along behind tents and slashing them open with knives to look for things to steal.

Its only a small percentage but the feral element is there.
 
Last weekend hubby a I were out scratching around Talbot, hubby went off one way and I went the other keeping troopy within sight . I got a signal at the base of an old tree stump and started digging, knowing it could be crap inside the stump OR maybe gold under the roots. I use an external speaker and I was on my knees digging away for 10 mins or so and I looked up and there was a bloke walking towards me, he was carrying a GPZ7000, I didn't hear him coming because I was head down, he was looking around (for someone else I'm guessing) I said g'day and kept digging while chatting, with one eye on him as well, he made me nervous. I told him I was new to this and he kept looking around past me into the bush. I said hubby was just over there somewhere. He suggested I call out to him so that he can do the hard digging... So I did. After a few minutes of him looking about he spotted hubby wandering towards us and he commented that 'he's not in any hurry is he'. I told him hubby never hurries. He reluctantly said his name was Micheal from Geelong and that 'personally he wouldn't bother digging there, but he'd been wrong before' then he suggested we hitch the stump to troopy and pull it out, hubby said 'nope' and went to troopy and got the axe, maybe for 'just in case this guy's a nutter and needs slowing down' or just to try and chop a side off the stump to have a look down inside, which he tried to do, the stump was too old and hard and wouldn't give though and by now 'Michael' said bye and decided to wander off. I have no idea where he went. Hubby and I decided to bury the stump back in a go home.
Was this bloke just being friendly-ish ? Maybe? I don't know?
He made me nervous anyway. Probably went back there and pulled the stump out himself to have a look under it.
I'll go with hubby later today and see.
 
Its sad that we've come to doubt people as much as we do. Stranger danger is something we never knew of when growing up. I thought it was just something invented for city rared school kids. It seems the disease has spread far and wide threatening our peaceful way of life.
 
Exact reason for this recent purchase

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Flowerpot said:
Last weekend hubby a I were out scratching around Talbot, hubby went off one way and I went the other keeping troopy within sight . I got a signal at the base of an old tree stump and started digging, knowing it could be crap inside the stump OR maybe gold under the roots. I use an external speaker and I was on my knees digging away for 10 mins or so and I looked up and there was a bloke walking towards me, he was carrying a GPZ7000, I didn't hear him coming because I was head down, he was looking around (for someone else I'm guessing) I said g'day and kept digging while chatting, with one eye on him as well, he made me nervous. I told him I was new to this and he kept looking around past me into the bush. I said hubby was just over there somewhere. He suggested I call out to him so that he can do the hard digging... So I did. After a few minutes of him looking about he spotted hubby wandering towards us and he commented that 'he's not in any hurry is he'. I told him hubby never hurries. He reluctantly said his name was Micheal from Geelong and that 'personally he wouldn't bother digging there, but he'd been wrong before' then he suggested we hitch the stump to troopy and pull it out, hubby said 'nope' and went to troopy and got the axe, maybe for 'just in case this guy's a nutter and needs slowing down' or just to try and chop a side off the stump to have a look down inside, which he tried to do, the stump was too old and hard and wouldn't give though and by now 'Michael' said bye and decided to wander off. I have no idea where he went. Hubby and I decided to bury the stump back in a go home.
Was this bloke just being friendly-ish ? Maybe? I don't know?
He made me nervous anyway. Probably went back there and pulled the stump out himself to have a look under it.
I'll go with hubby later today and see.

Go with your instincts.

If in doubt you said the right things to him anyway.
 
Awww geeez thanks for that AussieChris, this fella was certainly not that terrifying thank God.
Yeah MoneyBox, it is sad that we can't trust everyone.
Trust your senses though, if your hackles stand up....
 

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