- Joined
- May 10, 2013
- Messages
- 171
- Reaction score
- 97
G'day
Just did a 14 day trip to Tibooburra, 10 in the field and 4 days traveling. If you're planning on doing a trip and come through Broken Hill, DON'T do the last 330km leg after dark
Holy snapping duck sh!7e! The ridiculously abundant wildlife is suicidal. Luckily my mates towing a van had added truck air horns fed from a converted bbq bottle reservoir, and blasted a mostly cleared path while I sucked their dust and copped every unseen pothole for 4 hours. I think I've left fingerprints in the steering wheel :| anyway...
Being a dedicated wet prospector who likes getting his gold every time he goes out, I wasn't going to plunge top dollars into a machine I probably wouldn't use often or seriously enough to justify owning. I bought Digger Dude's infinium and got it dialed into .1g bits to about 5" with a 3x7"DD coil, though I had to swing really slowly and sometimes only got a faint change in threshold not a signal. Luckily most of the gold there is less than an inch deep on the shallow ground. My two mates had 5000's with 8" Sadie NF coils and all the bells and whistles and killed me on bits below .1g but at the end of the day I couldn't really complain on 1/10th the budget and some of them weren't much bigger than I get in my pan
[video=480,360]http://youtu.be/6Ydh8-BQjys[/video]
We stayed 3 days in town at the aboriginal camp ground. Top place if you don't need power- $11 per vehicle, gas hot showers, gas BBQ's, proper bogs, clean and comes with a good yarn and a million dollar view.
The common around the town is huge and you could spend weeks just swinging here. We spent 3 days and the boys scored some tiny bits to my none though I did my bit for Clean Up Australia and found some nice topaz sunbaking.
Aboriginal Land Council camp ground
Super moon rising over dry blowing heaps on the common
Swinging on the common
Next we moved into the Warratta Inlier on Gumvale Station for 4 days. If your soft like my mates and need a caravan then you can take the station tracks around to the western side and enter onto Jeffery's Flat, otherwise follow the dry riverbed in from the north end. Easy to spot and a brilliant view as you enter the valley. We found a few bigger bits in here but with no real pattern to them, just a case of walking over them. Again they were all very shallow. One bloke we spoke to snagged a 3g piece but that was his only find. There is so much ground out here and definitely nice patches to be found but not this time.
[video=480,360]http://youtu.be/606iBC1igWk[/video]
Old shafts
Combining scraping with Google Earth markers
A gift for the next prospector. Sorry to offend but it had to be done
For the last 3 days we headed to Mt Stuart Station (unfortunately Mt Brown and Mt Poole are currently closed to prospectors) and again got onto some bigger bits but nothing over a gram and all on ground less than an inch deep. The low hills around the edge of the granites are capped with or shedding layers of conglomerate and the dry creek beds are full of it. I nearly had an organism! but sadly the 3000 bits I swung and got faint signals from contained nothing but just enough hot rocks to drive me nuts.
Hot conglomerate everywhere
Camp at Mt Stuart
Corner country
I want a gyrocopter
[video=480,360]http://youtu.be/5GSuUNrKbfg[/video]
We didn't smash the gold ( less than 1/2oz) and I'm not converted from my watery ways but the gold's not all its about and I had the time of my life seeing some absolutely stunning country and evidence of the antics the old timers got up to before the time of automobiles. Hard bastards for sure
The road back to Broken Hill only took 100km to split all the soft drink cans open and pop the tops off all the beers in the waeco but I will be back
Here's some more pics of stuff
Dropping stuff down holes
[video=480,360]http://youtu.be/SJhsCRmY2mQ[/video]
Instant repair for plugger blow-outs
Tibooburra drive-in
Icey treats in the outback
Mulga fire in a quartz ring
Cheers
Chimpy
Just did a 14 day trip to Tibooburra, 10 in the field and 4 days traveling. If you're planning on doing a trip and come through Broken Hill, DON'T do the last 330km leg after dark
Holy snapping duck sh!7e! The ridiculously abundant wildlife is suicidal. Luckily my mates towing a van had added truck air horns fed from a converted bbq bottle reservoir, and blasted a mostly cleared path while I sucked their dust and copped every unseen pothole for 4 hours. I think I've left fingerprints in the steering wheel :| anyway...Being a dedicated wet prospector who likes getting his gold every time he goes out, I wasn't going to plunge top dollars into a machine I probably wouldn't use often or seriously enough to justify owning. I bought Digger Dude's infinium and got it dialed into .1g bits to about 5" with a 3x7"DD coil, though I had to swing really slowly and sometimes only got a faint change in threshold not a signal. Luckily most of the gold there is less than an inch deep on the shallow ground. My two mates had 5000's with 8" Sadie NF coils and all the bells and whistles and killed me on bits below .1g but at the end of the day I couldn't really complain on 1/10th the budget and some of them weren't much bigger than I get in my pan
[video=480,360]http://youtu.be/6Ydh8-BQjys[/video]
We stayed 3 days in town at the aboriginal camp ground. Top place if you don't need power- $11 per vehicle, gas hot showers, gas BBQ's, proper bogs, clean and comes with a good yarn and a million dollar view.
The common around the town is huge and you could spend weeks just swinging here. We spent 3 days and the boys scored some tiny bits to my none though I did my bit for Clean Up Australia and found some nice topaz sunbaking.
Aboriginal Land Council camp ground
Super moon rising over dry blowing heaps on the common
Swinging on the common
Next we moved into the Warratta Inlier on Gumvale Station for 4 days. If your soft like my mates and need a caravan then you can take the station tracks around to the western side and enter onto Jeffery's Flat, otherwise follow the dry riverbed in from the north end. Easy to spot and a brilliant view as you enter the valley. We found a few bigger bits in here but with no real pattern to them, just a case of walking over them. Again they were all very shallow. One bloke we spoke to snagged a 3g piece but that was his only find. There is so much ground out here and definitely nice patches to be found but not this time.
[video=480,360]http://youtu.be/606iBC1igWk[/video]
Old shafts
Combining scraping with Google Earth markers
A gift for the next prospector. Sorry to offend but it had to be done
For the last 3 days we headed to Mt Stuart Station (unfortunately Mt Brown and Mt Poole are currently closed to prospectors) and again got onto some bigger bits but nothing over a gram and all on ground less than an inch deep. The low hills around the edge of the granites are capped with or shedding layers of conglomerate and the dry creek beds are full of it. I nearly had an organism! but sadly the 3000 bits I swung and got faint signals from contained nothing but just enough hot rocks to drive me nuts.
Hot conglomerate everywhere
Camp at Mt Stuart
Corner country
I want a gyrocopter
[video=480,360]http://youtu.be/5GSuUNrKbfg[/video]
We didn't smash the gold ( less than 1/2oz) and I'm not converted from my watery ways but the gold's not all its about and I had the time of my life seeing some absolutely stunning country and evidence of the antics the old timers got up to before the time of automobiles. Hard bastards for sure
The road back to Broken Hill only took 100km to split all the soft drink cans open and pop the tops off all the beers in the waeco but I will be back
Here's some more pics of stuff
Dropping stuff down holes
[video=480,360]http://youtu.be/SJhsCRmY2mQ[/video]
Instant repair for plugger blow-outs
Tibooburra drive-in
Icey treats in the outback
Mulga fire in a quartz ring
Cheers
Chimpy
