A mate and I went stayed in Inglewood during October for about 2 weeks. You all know the stories about the mozzies so I won't say much about them except there was a bloody lot of them! The flies started coming out in the last couple of days there. It rained a little on a couple of days but nothing like the previous few weeks. My mate was suffering from hay fever and I had a recuperating leg issue. Still as the days wore on we ended up being out for up to 10 hours a day towards the end. Sounds great hey? Well to top it off we got 7 bits all up in that period. One bit hit 1g the rest were below. I got 3 bits (1g, 0.9g and 0.5g)
Most detectorists we spoke with had similar small (and much smaller) bits. The SDCs and 7000s were the only machines consistently getting gold and most of those were no bigger than pin head size. We tried old and new areas. We pushed through some really thick bush and I tried eucy patches. We tried different coils. We travelled to other fields.
Despite all this I regarded my finds as fortunate although it was my worst result for over 12 months. One piece in particular may become my new avatar to remind me just how much luck can play a part in what we do. 2nd last day and I came out of a "new forest" into a small patch of eucy and had my eyes on the mossie laden gully on the other side. I was not walking fast but faster than usual as I started thinking about the forthcoming mozzie bites and beer. I hit a nice mellow sound. Scratched the surface and no more than an inch down I got a 0.5g that looked like a square with a tail. I looked around and thought "no one else could possibly have stumbled on this area with a detector, surely!" I spent another 90 minutes there (beer almost forgotten). I went back the next day and spent another 4 hours there. Barely a sound. I did come across the odd detector scratching tho'. How does that work that on my way back to the car thinking of beer and mozzies and not really going slow I hit the only bit of gold within about 50 sqm. I think my avatar might change again.
On another note - we were looking for relics in a small town and I was approached by two German tourists (I normally only come across German tourists in way outack places).They wanted to buy nuggets (1 or perhaps 2 oz bits) for their collection of minerals. I pointed out the detecting stores in the general area and they had been to most of them. They wanted nuggets in their natural state (ie speccies) and lamented that Aussies tend to drop their nuggets in acid. Well, not all the time but they were disappointed. Luckily, they were going to go to Kalgoorlie so I told them of the Natural Gold Nuggets store over there. If they didn't hold any sizeable speccies I'm pretty sure they would phone a friend or two to organise such. Oh, results of the relic hunt were also disappointing - only a 1942 3d.
Perhaps next time.
Pics of before and after cleaning are below.
Most detectorists we spoke with had similar small (and much smaller) bits. The SDCs and 7000s were the only machines consistently getting gold and most of those were no bigger than pin head size. We tried old and new areas. We pushed through some really thick bush and I tried eucy patches. We tried different coils. We travelled to other fields.
Despite all this I regarded my finds as fortunate although it was my worst result for over 12 months. One piece in particular may become my new avatar to remind me just how much luck can play a part in what we do. 2nd last day and I came out of a "new forest" into a small patch of eucy and had my eyes on the mossie laden gully on the other side. I was not walking fast but faster than usual as I started thinking about the forthcoming mozzie bites and beer. I hit a nice mellow sound. Scratched the surface and no more than an inch down I got a 0.5g that looked like a square with a tail. I looked around and thought "no one else could possibly have stumbled on this area with a detector, surely!" I spent another 90 minutes there (beer almost forgotten). I went back the next day and spent another 4 hours there. Barely a sound. I did come across the odd detector scratching tho'. How does that work that on my way back to the car thinking of beer and mozzies and not really going slow I hit the only bit of gold within about 50 sqm. I think my avatar might change again.
On another note - we were looking for relics in a small town and I was approached by two German tourists (I normally only come across German tourists in way outack places).They wanted to buy nuggets (1 or perhaps 2 oz bits) for their collection of minerals. I pointed out the detecting stores in the general area and they had been to most of them. They wanted nuggets in their natural state (ie speccies) and lamented that Aussies tend to drop their nuggets in acid. Well, not all the time but they were disappointed. Luckily, they were going to go to Kalgoorlie so I told them of the Natural Gold Nuggets store over there. If they didn't hold any sizeable speccies I'm pretty sure they would phone a friend or two to organise such. Oh, results of the relic hunt were also disappointing - only a 1942 3d.
Perhaps next time.
Pics of before and after cleaning are below.
