Took a good mate out today to show him some of the spots i work in and around the Daylesford and Hepburn area.
The day Started off really well, we got good colours in the usual places but water was scarce, so I decided to take my mate to a secret spot Ive been working for the past year, a really good spot anyway when we got there I was a little confused to say the least at the state of this spot.
Now i'm no angel ive turned some rocks over and opened up some areas in my time but someone had dug metre wide steps into the banks on both sides of the creek and paved them, they'd made a 50 meter path up the creek by carting rocks around and squashing it all down and built retaining walls with stones all around the place and made platforms everywhere.
I was thinking someone must be moving in... if I had my camera I would have taken a photo but seriously the place looked like someones backyard.
Anyway I was a bit pissed because I had been working a crevice that was producing really well and this goose had covered it all up with his rock furniture.
so were panning away and I hear someone coming through the bush,... i stand up and say "hey another fellow prospector how you going mate"? well this bloke went into a spinning rave like Ive never seen before..... he started carrying on about "you blokes wouldn't jump into a blokes grave would ya" "ya wouldn't wait for the body to turn cold would ya"
I thought he was taking the piss so i asked what do you mean? he started on about you blokes are jumping right into my hole! ive been bloody working this for 7 days. I said mate ive been working here for 12 months what the problem there's plenty of water.....
a few expletives later and a few yous (*&%^& city folk comin round ere taking all our gold..... rant rant rant I told him i actually grew up in the area and id never met anyone quite like him who walked straight in on the attack before and as far as I was concerned there was enough water for all...
nahnah nah he said yous cant use this water bugger of and find ya own water ya cant come in on a bloke like this ,im from the old school... etc etc. dont ya know if someone been ere ya cant work it ive been here for 65 years my families been here for 4 generations yous don't know how it works ya can bugger off yous got no respect taking money out me pocket
well I asked him to shut his pie hole before I shut it for him and that my patience was wearing out, by this stage my mate has put down his shovel and is about to knock this bloke out as well, he wouldn't shut up... carried on for 25 minutes at least before walking away and then came back again and again and kept going.
bear in mind he was working 50 meters down the creek and carting material up to where we were working and said we were muddying up his limited supply of water..
I decided we were going to leave before someone got hurt and I don't like hitting anyone let alone an old fella, it really pissed me off and ruined our whole day.
Got me thinking thought now if i was just getting into prospecting and had done some research bought a pan and headed down to this creek and some old prick came at me like that It would ruin the hobby for me. People like this are the reason we (prospectors) are sometimes looked at at toothless money hungry bank diggers....
This bloke broke all the rules for me,
a. didn't come and say hello and have a chat with a fellow prospector
B. abused the crap out of a fellow prospector with no reason
c. thinks he has some divine right to the water that runs through spring creek
d. made a mess of an area that frequents tourist all year which makes us prospectors look bad
e. didn't have a miners right and had no regard for the rules
So if your out Daylesford / Hepburn way look out for an old bloke with gumboots a shovel beard and hand made sieve who thinks he owns the place he's obviously quite unwell in the head.
The day Started off really well, we got good colours in the usual places but water was scarce, so I decided to take my mate to a secret spot Ive been working for the past year, a really good spot anyway when we got there I was a little confused to say the least at the state of this spot.
Now i'm no angel ive turned some rocks over and opened up some areas in my time but someone had dug metre wide steps into the banks on both sides of the creek and paved them, they'd made a 50 meter path up the creek by carting rocks around and squashing it all down and built retaining walls with stones all around the place and made platforms everywhere.
I was thinking someone must be moving in... if I had my camera I would have taken a photo but seriously the place looked like someones backyard.
Anyway I was a bit pissed because I had been working a crevice that was producing really well and this goose had covered it all up with his rock furniture.
so were panning away and I hear someone coming through the bush,... i stand up and say "hey another fellow prospector how you going mate"? well this bloke went into a spinning rave like Ive never seen before..... he started carrying on about "you blokes wouldn't jump into a blokes grave would ya" "ya wouldn't wait for the body to turn cold would ya"
I thought he was taking the piss so i asked what do you mean? he started on about you blokes are jumping right into my hole! ive been bloody working this for 7 days. I said mate ive been working here for 12 months what the problem there's plenty of water.....
a few expletives later and a few yous (*&%^& city folk comin round ere taking all our gold..... rant rant rant I told him i actually grew up in the area and id never met anyone quite like him who walked straight in on the attack before and as far as I was concerned there was enough water for all...
nahnah nah he said yous cant use this water bugger of and find ya own water ya cant come in on a bloke like this ,im from the old school... etc etc. dont ya know if someone been ere ya cant work it ive been here for 65 years my families been here for 4 generations yous don't know how it works ya can bugger off yous got no respect taking money out me pocket
well I asked him to shut his pie hole before I shut it for him and that my patience was wearing out, by this stage my mate has put down his shovel and is about to knock this bloke out as well, he wouldn't shut up... carried on for 25 minutes at least before walking away and then came back again and again and kept going.
bear in mind he was working 50 meters down the creek and carting material up to where we were working and said we were muddying up his limited supply of water..
I decided we were going to leave before someone got hurt and I don't like hitting anyone let alone an old fella, it really pissed me off and ruined our whole day.
Got me thinking thought now if i was just getting into prospecting and had done some research bought a pan and headed down to this creek and some old prick came at me like that It would ruin the hobby for me. People like this are the reason we (prospectors) are sometimes looked at at toothless money hungry bank diggers....
This bloke broke all the rules for me,
a. didn't come and say hello and have a chat with a fellow prospector
B. abused the crap out of a fellow prospector with no reason
c. thinks he has some divine right to the water that runs through spring creek
d. made a mess of an area that frequents tourist all year which makes us prospectors look bad
e. didn't have a miners right and had no regard for the rules
So if your out Daylesford / Hepburn way look out for an old bloke with gumboots a shovel beard and hand made sieve who thinks he owns the place he's obviously quite unwell in the head.
