Hello I am from Donald Vic

[twowendy]

Hi I am a newbie here & my name is Wendy & hubby Ian we have just started detecting for Ian wanted a hobby & has never tried gold detecting before so he went & bought top of the range Minelab GPX 5000 we went away for 4 nights last week to give it all a try we only went to St Arnaud with the caravan & we went to the wax gardens & camped there it was just to see if everything was working & to get the detector set up we did find a lot of empty bullet cases.

I have not tried using a detector before but i have tried dredging up at Stanton-Harcourt Gold Field Qld & i did gold panning as well so this is new & most likely easier than dredging I hope

We are off again next week but this time we are thinking of going down near Dunolly

Cheers all

 

[loamer]

Welcome to you both, and a big hullo to the folk from the famous Donald's Kooka's Country Cookies!!! (many times I have had them for smoko - nothing beats biscuits, filled with jam and covered in chocolate. mmmmm.)
St Arnaud's is a pretty reasonable detecting area and in case you are unaware, Doug Stone did two maps of the area - St Arnaud Goldfield and Stuart Mill Goldfield which are available to buy on-line. There is also his other two maps - Wedderburn and the Garibaldi - Wedderburn Goldfields -also available on line. So Donald is a pretty good base to hit the north west goldfields. If you are hitting the Dunolly area, might I recommend John Tullys map series of the area. Goldsearch Australia, main street of Dunolly normally has all these maps. Its next to the pub. Coiltek at Maryborough also has them - on the right just as you drive in from Dunolly.

The 5000 is a mighty machine, I run the 4500 and these GPX machines perform exceptionally well in these areas. I can't give you any recommended 5000 settings but from talking to people just starting out with them, the factory pre-sets seem to be more than adequate whilst learning.

Good luck and happy hunting.

 

[the duck]

Welcome aboard you have the best detector for finding gold now you just have to walk over some Hope you find heaps

 

[twowendy]

Thanks for the info loamer & you are right about Kooka's Country Cookies they are great to have with a cuppa.
We did buy 1 of Doug Stone maps of St Arnaud but would you know it we can't find it i wish we could find it with the Minelab We will have a look for John Tullys map series of the area. we are still trying to work out how to use the Etrex garmin it did not come with any info but that is what the net is for I think we are all lucky to have the net its not like it use to be

 

[twowendy]

I did not for get you the Duck thanks for the welcome as well we may have a great detector but its finding gold is the hard part but i do get to do a lot of walking which is good

 

[loamer]

Wendy - here is a link for the manual you need. Good luck.

http://www8.garmin.com/products/manual.jsp?product=010-00190-00

 

[kleinman98]

Welcome to the forum and hope you both have fun in the sun. Hope to cross paths with some of you vics when I get down around the triangle

 

[twowendy]

Thanks loamer for the link i will have a look at it

 

[twowendy]

Thank you John & yes it would be great to meet others that are into this I wish you all the best

 

[airwolfie]

Hi donald may I ask how you went panning a stanton hardcourt as I live on the creek feeding it. Just thinking of checking it out. Did you witness any whilst panning?