Bugger

I left Laverton this arvo for the long haul back to Victoria and just 20ks into the trip this happens.

Im now in Leonora caravan Park for the night so i can hopefully get a new tyre in the morning.
If they don't have any its gunna be a long scary trip down to Kalgoolie with no spare for the trailer.

Ironstone Species

G,day, i havn't had alot to tell lately as the gold has been slow and also i spent a few days and nights in town at the van park mainly to watch the footy.
Yesterday i was out prospecting and got to the top of hill covered with very dark ironstone,
the ground was a bit noisy [mineralization] but i managed to get a quiet signal and it turned out to be a good specimen, an hour later i had 19 specimens  with about 20 odd grams of gold, i wont know for sure how much gold until i smash them up in a dolly pot then pan it off.

 I went back there this morning and got another four bits, 2 species and 2 nuggets, over the next few days i will go back with some water and a gold pan to see if there is any fine gold in the soil,
as well as do some loaming.
Loaming is a way of finding out whether there is a reef nearby.
The fine gold is like a trail back to the reef.

Fantastic Ausie Outback

Camels, very hard to take pics of.

Somtimes dry creek beds are like roads to travel on.

Unless of course there has been recent rain.

camels

Brumbies, i have seen alot of these in small groups of about 7, there was only 3 in this group.

 more camels, on one trip out i saw obout 50 camels in different groups, the males are very protective and will charge at you if you get to close.

Dingo lairs, inside you will see alot of kangaroo bones.

This is another horse and cart track, note the 3 tracks running along side of each other.

 Dingo laires along a breakaway.

I came across another old timers camp, they must have left in a hurry because they left their cooking gear behind including this axe head.

Just another ripping sunset.

I came across some drillers who were drilling for water.



An old dissused well, if there was water in the tank the camels would have crushed the tank to get to the water. This is one of the many wells with the name Xmas well.

and more camels.

Some of the sites around outback WA

You see alot of this on the outback roads.
The wheels of the truck have been taken off so it can be transported.

Emu eggs, these have been bleached white by the sun.

This is how the old timers marked their lease boundary.

Driving towards Leonora i came across these 2 pups along way from their home.

This hill was once a thousand or 2 feet higher but over time this is all thats left.



typical spinifex and sand area.

tough going in the spinifex and sand

If the spinifex gets to hard to ride through sometimes we take the road

very hard to see but running through the middle of this pic is an old horse and cart track.
note the 3 tracks of the 2 wheels with the horse track in the middle.

Aboriginal artifacts

Aboriginal grinding stone

 Hi all, on my last trip out on my own i found this grinding stone, it was used to grind up nuts or somthing like that anyway, below is the gold i have found in the past few months, all ready to be sold as im getting hungry, don't worry Mon i will keep some for your bracelet,

4 ounces 9 grams

Orb spider

13.3 grams

Hi all, took off for 3 days and 2 nights prospecting an area that i was at earlier this year.
I didn't have any luck prospecting but i went over an old patch with the smallest coil i have and found more gold that i missed with the bigger coils.
I found 65 nuggets for a total weight of 13.3 grams.
On one of the days i heard a car heading towards me and as i was working next to a track i decided to head for the bushes as you don't want people to see you getting gold and as i was running i ran through a massive Orb spider web, if you could have seen me you would have had a great laugh, lucky for me the car didnt head down my track haha. cheers Stu

camp for a few days

Where's the big one?

Just half ounce last week, still looking for that big one.

BBBRRRRR

 G,day, the nights are getting colder but the days warm up quickly, I headed out to an old patch and found 28 nuggets for 6.1 grams, not a lot in weight but still fun to find, cheers Stu

Beer Bottles & Gold

Hi everyone, just spent a week out on the quad bike tours with Steve and Terry. Having only one customer this trip [Terry] only 2 of us needed to take him, i was camp cook for this trip and we all survived haha. first day out we only got 3 nuggets so the next day i decided to go to an area that i had drove over a few months back on my quad and there had been a bit of work done there before by previous prospectors. We straight away started to find gold and were soon getting alot of very small gold nuggets, we spent the next 2 days on this spot. After a few days we decided to go prospecting in different directions and Steve called on the radio that he might have found a spot,
Terry and i rolled up and Steve was finding gold everywhere so we started to detect around him.
before long we were all finding very small nuggets everywhere.
We stayed at this spot for the rest of the trip and between the three of us we got over 3 ounces with myself getting 1 ounce 3 grams which is pretty good for a weeks work.
One day we had an Emu walk right through the middle of camp, they dont see many humans so they're not sure what we are and are not scared until the dog jumps up and gives chase. cheers Stu



setting  up camp



my 34 grams or 1 ounce 3 grams

total gold found by the three of us, over 3 ounces, mine is at the bottom of pic

Emu walking through camp

The golds over dataway

Rocky hilltops



An old camp, we think it might have been woodcutters, i found heaps of old beer bottles.

Gold mine from the 1890s

The beer bottles
I did some reserch on these bottles and their called Tiger Beer. There is a tiger face on the front of the bottles. The story goes that a hop grower in Tasmania had a dispute with Carlton United Breweries in the 1920s and they stoped buying his hops, so he decided to start his own brewery in Richmond, Victoria, which i guess is why its called Tiger beer.
The beer had a reputaion as being one of the finest around and these bottles are from around the depresion years.
The owner of the brewery died in 1961 and then in 1962 Carlton & United bought out the company and then dissmantled it, building and all.

 

Ants and Gold

Well i went back to the patch today with the 18" minelab coil, this is the largest coil i have and it detects deep looking for large gold
I decided to detect over the wash as its deeper and i did get a few littlies there with the 8".
Kicking sticks and branches out of the way i got a nasty bite on my leg and expected to see a brown snake hanging off my leg but looking down there was a friggin big ant and he stung, so quickly flicking him off i had a look at the ground and they were everywhere, on my boots and charging for my legs, these ants come straight at you, no messing around, so a quick dance and i was outa there way.
Its a 13k ride on the quad to get out here from camp so wasn't heading back just cos an ant bit me so kept detecting and glad i did.
Dug an 8" deep hole to get this funny looking 3.4 gram nugget out, the signal it gave made me think it might have been a specie as it was a wobbly signal, not long after i dug out the smaller .7 gram nugget.
Total nuggets now off this patch is 66 nuggets and just over an ounce, 31.7 grams, ok for 7 days work, cheers Stu

8" deep hole where the nugget came out of and the 18" coil.

3.4 gramer, strange nugget.

Ants, these are like the inch ants back in Vic