first time in a long time

[elbowgrease]

Its been an exciting and busy year this year with the arrival of a new family member, a bouncing baby boy arriving in March, prospecting has been on the back burner for pretty well 10 months being a good supportive husband and forgoing trips in the summer to stay at home with my wife!

In the off season I've managed to get rid of my old 1" pump and upgrade to a 1.5" pump, the upside is I easily get enough water to run the highbanker without revving the be-jesus out of it all day long, and lower revs means less noise, the down side is its bit heavier, the hoses are a bit heavier and the suction hose I can't coil as tightly and it's all going to be a bit more awkward to carry. Also went from aluminum cam-locks on the old hoses to poly cam-locks on the new hoses... holy cow the poly cam-locks are about a squillion times easy to do up.. why has no-one ever mentioned this before

Either going to head to Beechworth or into the Buckland Valley at this stage, haven't quite decided yet. Probably end up in Beechworth since I know the area a bit better.

Might have forgotten how to do this gold thing its been so long, but fingers crossed I can find a bit of the good stuff.

Hopefully report back with some pics and the tally once we get back!

 

[Ramjet]

Congrats and welcome back elbowgrease

 

[Chewy]

Congrats on the new arrival mate, coupla footy seasons and you can put him to work as ya apprentice digger.

 

[elbowgrease]

Congrats on the new arrival mate, coupla footy seasons and you can put him to work as ya apprentice digger.

Hahaha funny you should say that, I said exactly the same thing LOL

Put him to work clearing the grizzly on the banker and give him a 20% cut

 

[Goldtarget]

Good luck to you EG nice to see you getting back into it. Plenty left up there!

 

[jethro]

G, Day elbowgrease You sound like a local to my area ( wodonga ) maybe we should catch up. Hows the family mum & littln doing? The first 6 months is the hardest, then they become fun and you dont want to go out and miss anything. except nappies :lol:

 

[elbowgrease]

G, Day elbowgrease You sound like a local to my area ( wodonga ) maybe we should catch up. Hows the family mum & littln doing? The first 6 months is the hardest, then they become fun and you dont want to go out and miss anything. except nappies :lol:

From Shepp mate, but not a lot of fun alluvial ground round my way. Beechworth is probably the most reliable place to hit up from home and given the challenges of a young bub we will probably end up there tomorrow.

The little man has had a cold through the week and although the worst of it is passed, he is still a bit snotty and with the weather not as warm as the forecast was initially reporting I think we are going to give today a miss and go tomorrow instead.

The Buckland is on my list of places to go but a bit of first time exploring with a little man in the back seat is less than ideal I'm thinking. He's ok on bumpy roads for a little while at least but I'm not sure how he'd go bumpy roads for ages, stoping and starting and all that sort of thing. Might have to organise a reconnaissance trip with out the wife and bub, and once I know where I'm going they can come on the next one sort of thing.

 

[jethro]

Drop me a pm when you decide to go up to buckland & will try and either meet you or point you in the right direction. The water in the buckland & ovens will be too cold and deep for effective prospecting ATM. Better to wait until at least after Xmas.