How good is this?

[lostandfound]

I used to read stories about hidden treasure and secret underground tunnels, always in other countries, and often lamented that "We just didnt have that kind of stuff here."

It's as obvious to me now, as it is to you, just how wrong I was.

I love the feeling of following the tracks that the old timers left behind. I love the steps cut into the hillsides that lead to the creek, with big chunks of quartz strewn all over. It's like you can feel the old timer's presence as you add your footsteps to the many thousands before.

Well, last week I made a happy discovery.
After getting tired of walking kms through thick bush to get back to the car, I decided to cross a gully in a different location, and I happened upon a secret track .
This track leads from about 20m from the creek to about 50 metres from the road. It's too narrow to drive down, but it makes hiking easier, faster and safer.
I can't tell you how happy I was to find this track. It's not on any map I can find so it feels like my own private bush highway.
I've always wanted one of those.

What happy non-gold discoveries have you made while out fossicking?

 

[grubstake]

Several 'secret' bush tracks that I've come across, have led to small, long-abandoned, cannabis plantations, hidden by thick scrub. Be careful where you tred on such paths - booby traps are not unknown. Also, in the case of an active plantation, camo trail cams may be hidden, that could endanger you if their owners follow up an inadvertent intrusion.

 

[Moneybox]

I our early days of gold prospecting we visited a difficult to access valley that had been mined in the 19th century and several times since. This area always produced gold and some decent sized nuggets 20g and better.

You know what it's like, the grass is always greener on the other side. This valley is surrounded by hills that are bare of most vegetation and so steep that you have to pick your footings to scale the side and there was little point anyway because the gold was mostly on the flats. The map showed a gold occurrence on the other side of the range so we just had to take a look.

I took the GPX4500 and a bottle of water and scaled the least steep hill I could find. That took me into another gully and then up another steep loose hill before a long decline into a dry creek bed on the other side. The gold occurrence coordinates placed it at the head of a steep gully on the other side of the creek. After climbing the gully I switched on the detector and started to work my way down again. I'd only gone about twenty metres before digging a beautifully water worn 6g nugget. The day was almost half done by then so I switched the detector of and headed back to camp. We just had to find a way into that valley so that Mrs M could be there too.

I spent the evening pawing over the maps and found that the creek in our valley intersected with the other creek a kilometre of so to the north. In the morning we set off in the bus picking our way down stream working in and out of the creek as needed to to dodge rough rocky sections and low hanging trees. The bus is 3.1m high so trees are always a problem. The 2.5km trip took us all day but just on dark we settled on a nice flat patch high in the creek bed just 200m from our destination. In the morning we set off with the detectors and a packed lunch but when we got there Mrs M decided that my gully was too steep so she went on to the next more level area on the inside of a bend and the other side of the creek.

Before she got there she stumbled across a small patch of coloured glass and pulled out two old coins. Working her way along towards her slope she found the usual tin cans, old picks and what appeared to be a couple of unmarked graves.

We both found gold that day, mine a bit bigger but she got onto a limestone patch that was giving up lots of tiny SDC2300 nuggets. We spent a week or so there swapping back and forth between the two spots. We didn't want to leave in a hurry because the track in was so difficult. The top end of Mrs M's patch dropped over a steep rocky embankment into a small gully. The rocky bank, about 3m tall, was giving up 1g and 1.5g nuggets over about 50m or so. The bottom end of the gully T'd into another gully so I checked the other side. I didn't get gold but lots of hobnail boot tacks. I worked my way across this small ridge following the tacks and it led me up the next gully. I knew these tacks must be leading me somewhere because it was a continuous line that took me to the head of the gully.

As I crested to saddle there was evidence of a track cut into the slope down the other side. I followed it and within 100m or so I was looking out into the valley where we'd been camped a week earlier. This simple easy to traverse track was only a few hundred metres long and passed through the steep hills from one valley to the next. If I could have found the track earlier we could have stayed camped in our original spot and just taken an easy walk right to where the gold was on the other side. We never really used the walk track even though we went back the following year. Once we'd made our way in by bus we'd made another of those myriad of bush tracks you come across in the goldfields.

 

[lostandfound]

Several 'secret' bush tracks that I've come across, have led to small, long-abandoned, cannabis plantations, hidden by thick scrub. Be careful where you tred on such paths - booby traps are not unknown. Also, in the case of an active plantation, camo trail cams may be hidden, that could endanger you if their owners follow up an inadvertent intrusion.

I'd never thought of booby traps, and I'm glad I haven't discovered any.
Though it might not be all bad as booby trap spelled backwards is "party boob", which sounds kinda nice.