Prospecting / Gold detecting tours Victoria

We are wondering about taking a mine detecting tour in Victoria. Has anyone participated in these and if so was it worthwhile? We are about to purchase a Minelab 5000 and thought it might be a good introduction to gold detecting and a great way to spend a few days in Victorian bush....?

Hi M&A, welcome to the forum.

I haven't been on one of these tours personally but from what I gather they can be very insightful for not just newcomers but even more advanced users, I believe this is especially true for GPX 5000 owners given the sophistication of the machine.

Id say if you can afford it, it's probably well worth the money, and if don't take anything useful away from it, at least you've still got your few days spent in the bush

Cheers,
Nugget

hi Mick and Anne I don't do tours but depending on where you like in vic I may be able to show you safe places to go to find the yellow

ps have you been to whroo gold mine near rushworth vic its pretty amazing

Hello, thanks for the reply. No we haven't been anywhere at all in Victoria as yet.....however, we will be rectifying that very soon hopefully! We are trying to oranise to take a few days off and hop on the boat sometime in June. Will try to get to Rushworth if time permits.
Cheers!

Hi Mick & Anne, welcome to the forum.

I've never done a prospecting tour/tutorial as yet. I don't have a very good detector either...

1st lesson is to buy a GPS as well.

Once I hand over a wad of cash for a detector, I will definitely do some tours/courses - takes some of the guess work out of things.

There's tours around Bendigo I think. Also one of our members has some sort of classes that he runs - Diggerdude.

Good luck out there.

Mick and Anne,

Last month I took my son down to Bendigo to do a two day, one on one detecting course with Gold Prospecting Australia. My son Sam had never detected before and on the first day found two small nuggets.

As far as tours go, Ronda and Mark Hyde of GPA do tours in the Triangle in Autumn and Spring ( as well as training days) and in Winter they do Western Australian tours. I have done thirteen Western Australian tours with GPA and highly recommend them.

Cheers,

Jig.

Agree about GPA.

I did one to Mt Browne a couple of years ago. My first experience with prospecting and had a great time and found Mark and Rhonda great and informative hosts. Under Marks tuition I did manage to find gold as did everyone else on the tour.

As a result I am trying to now take detecting up as a hobby during my retirement.

The only trouble is that you need to book so far in advance as they are so popular and good

Rich

Hello again. Thanks for the input everyone. We have booked a tour for a couple of days in Victoria towards the end of June. We are really looking forward to this as it will be our first prospecting experience. Will let you know how we go! Be great to find a "retirement nugget"!!!

All gold is "Good" gold Mick & Anne....hope luck follows you around throughout the whole tour. Look forward to the feedback...Cheers Wal.

Hi Mick and Anne, I recently went on a Gold and Relics tour. They operate out of Clunes and Darren was excellent. I had a great day learning heaps about metal detecting and found a nice little 2 grammer on the tour. Darren was very free with his information. I haven't bought a detector yet so I hired a detector for 2 days after I did the tour and found another couple of small pieces during the 2 days that I went out. Once I knew what I was looking for it was easy. Cheers Pete.

Hi again! We are getting excited about our trip to Victoria in another week or so. As I have said previously we will pick up our minelab 5000, and have booked a couple of days with a tour out of Bendigo. We were originally only going to stay a further couple of days but now may have the opportunity to extend our trip and add another day or two. Would anyone be able to suggest possible sites around the bendigo area for us to go detecting please? We have a Landcruiser set up for camping and are fully self sufficient so we are happy to go to more out of the way places.

Just a noob - was thinking of trying out the half-day tour with 'Gold & Relics' near Ballarat - can anyone
tell me if they've tried that one, or maybe can recommend another? Not expecting to strike it rich, but
should be worthwhile talking to some experienced prospectors.

Give diggerdownunder.com.au a go Reg is an absolute wealth of knowledge . He is the real deal .

Lasseter said:

Just a noob - was thinking of trying out the half-day tour with 'Gold & Relics' near Ballarat - can anyone
tell me if they've tried that one, or maybe can recommend another? Not expecting to strike it rich, but
should be worthwhile talking to some experienced prospectors.

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Sent you a PM, most of the Gold Tour operators are OK, haven't done any for a while (prev.. 1 with Ray, Craig and Robert, think it was their only one and one with Nenad that he ran on a trip to the GT). Have seen G & R tours when out and about in the same areas I've gotten gold. There are quite a few options when you check/google them.
Cheers T.

Thanks arroyo that guy Reg does sound pretty good going by his site!

Hi Teemore, how do you view PM's on this site?

Lasseter said:

Thanks arroyo that guy Reg does sound pretty good going by his site!

Hi Teemore, how do you view PM's on this site?

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Oops, think you need a few more posts before PM is available ... sent you an email.
Cheers T.

Email not rec'd either - could be a problem with the website?

Mate I have gone out with Darren from Gold Relics 3 times and found him to be great, excellent knowledge and tries really hard to make sure everyone finds something, preferably gold. JMO

maxwell4 said:

Mate I have gone out with Darren from Gold Relics 3 times and found him to be great, excellent knowledge and tries really hard to make sure everyone finds something, preferably gold. JMO

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Yes some interesting stuff on their website too. Still some semi-virginal patches left around Creswick then?

arroyo said:

Give diggerdownunder.com.au a go Reg is an absolute wealth of knowledge . He is the real deal .

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I will attest to this.

Reg Wilson is most definitely the real deal.

A quick Goggle search will also confirm this.

He is located within 90 minutes of Melbourne.