Hi all.
I have recently discovered prospecting as a hobby and I'm finding it to be a great way to escape Netflix and spend some time outdoors, now that I live in Bacchus Marsh, a bit closer to the goldfields than I ever have been.
I started doing a bit of panning after watching a ton of Vogus and Adventure Gold videos on YouTube.
A few weeks ago I did a day trip with a guy in Bendigo (Mark from Gold Prospecting Australia) and found a couple of small nuggets with his help.
This week I've been lucky enough to have access to a borrowed GPX5000 and have been to different places Monday Tuesday and Today.
Monday I went into a fairly rough patch of bush near Castlemaine which showed some old surface workings on GeoVic. I followed an old water race, then worked around the sides of a dredged out gully, a handful of lead shot but no Gold.
Tuesday I checked out the area around some old reef shafts in Blackwood. It was very very rough and I old had a couple of hours there. Didn't find much, just a handful of 22 casings and some other small rubbish
Today I went to the Rising Star surface workings near Daylesford. I had the whole day today, and the ground was much better for detecting. I got a ton of lead slugs and 22 casings, along with some deep old iron spikes etc from the old machinery. Unfortunately no Gold. The whole area had been dug out. With my lack of knowledge I wasn't sure the best spots to detect. I couldn't see and obvious piles of leftover dirt, it just looked like the whole area had been processed.
Anyway, hopefully I'll find a place where I can get some gold soon. I figure without the experience yet, it's just a matter of trying many different areas and digging many different targets, eventually one has to be gold right? I just wish I had a better idea of what I was looking for. At the moment all I have is GeoVic, with the data for surface workings and mining activity.
I'll try and figure out how to upload some photos of the areas in was, they are all well over 2mb.
I have recently discovered prospecting as a hobby and I'm finding it to be a great way to escape Netflix and spend some time outdoors, now that I live in Bacchus Marsh, a bit closer to the goldfields than I ever have been.
I started doing a bit of panning after watching a ton of Vogus and Adventure Gold videos on YouTube.
A few weeks ago I did a day trip with a guy in Bendigo (Mark from Gold Prospecting Australia) and found a couple of small nuggets with his help.
This week I've been lucky enough to have access to a borrowed GPX5000 and have been to different places Monday Tuesday and Today.
Monday I went into a fairly rough patch of bush near Castlemaine which showed some old surface workings on GeoVic. I followed an old water race, then worked around the sides of a dredged out gully, a handful of lead shot but no Gold.
Tuesday I checked out the area around some old reef shafts in Blackwood. It was very very rough and I old had a couple of hours there. Didn't find much, just a handful of 22 casings and some other small rubbish
Today I went to the Rising Star surface workings near Daylesford. I had the whole day today, and the ground was much better for detecting. I got a ton of lead slugs and 22 casings, along with some deep old iron spikes etc from the old machinery. Unfortunately no Gold. The whole area had been dug out. With my lack of knowledge I wasn't sure the best spots to detect. I couldn't see and obvious piles of leftover dirt, it just looked like the whole area had been processed.
Anyway, hopefully I'll find a place where I can get some gold soon. I figure without the experience yet, it's just a matter of trying many different areas and digging many different targets, eventually one has to be gold right? I just wish I had a better idea of what I was looking for. At the moment all I have is GeoVic, with the data for surface workings and mining activity.
I'll try and figure out how to upload some photos of the areas in was, they are all well over 2mb.
ickshovel:
