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

Relics from around camp

Quartz, this is an aboriginal grinding stone, it fits perfectly in your hand.

Old boomerangs, they could be hundreds of years old. 

G,day, not all you find out here is gold, here is some very old boomerangs and grinding stones and i think there called womeras, those things that are used to throw spears,

This is greenstone, its been used by the aboriginies to grind seeds. these grinding stones could be centuries old, maybe a thousand years.

Lots of rubbish from the old timers, this cup might be from the depresion years.

Old hand gun barrel, could be from the 1890s

Still working the patch

Hi, im still going over this patch and sunday i put the small coil on the detector to see if i could find the very small nuggets that the bigger coils miss, i found 12 tiny nuggets weighing 2.7 grams total. Not big dollers in small nuggets but fun to dig up.Stu



The patch

These are the 3 coils that i use, the larger one for finding patches then once found i put the round grey coil on, then to clean up all the little nuggets i use the small coil.

small nuggets that the small coil finds

A NEW PATCH

G,day, About a week ago i found a nice patch of gold, first day i found 10 nuggets then 21 the next day then 12 then 1 then 3 then 5 for a total of 52 nuggets, no big ones so the total weight was 25 grams, thats ok for a weeks work and it would be good if every week is this good. I went back to this spot with some water and a gold pan to see if there is any fine gold in the soil but not a spec of fine gold to be found which sometimes is the case. the nuggets that i found was very reefy so it hadn't travelled far from its source so i'm looking for a reef but yet to find it. cheers Stu

the first 4 days work



2 small nuggets and an ironstone specie

Elvis  ready to go home





found 5 nuggets within a very small area 

Holidays

G,day all, December was my last post so i will update yas all on what and where i went over xmas and January.
I headed down to Perth around the 22nd of DEC and had a look around there for a day and Perth is twice the size it was back in 88 when i last was there, then i headed down to Busselton which was way to busy with holiday makers so i continued sth to Margaret River and that was worse so i drove all the way down to Walpole, the next 2 weeks i spent fishing along the sth coast from Walpole to Albany catching mainly Herring and Trevally. Along this stretch there are some great places to camp right on the beaches with a few good inlets to fish for Bream,

1 kilo Trevaly caught off rocks near Albany

The flora down the sth of WA is a lot different than the goldfields, Black Boys or for the politically correct grass trees seem to be everywhere and Banksias which are one of my favourite trees are all over the place too.



One of the beaches where you camp right on it, how good to smell fresh sea breezes instead of dry outback dust.

Kangaroo Paw



Wine Palm?





As the fishing wasn't the best and Salmon season was still a few months away i decided to head back to Perth and travel nth towards Geraldton. I had heard that they catch good tailor around this time of year nth of Perth so i was looking forward to that. On the way i spent about 4 days in Perth as i had to sell some gold and buy some new tyres for my quad bike and then get them shipped to Laverton.

about 3 ounces that i sold in Perth

 While in Perth i found out that one of dads cousins Chris Allen lives in Wanaroo just a few ks nth so i spent another 2 days there and met his wife and some of their grand kids, geeze the Allens are all the same. After a few days with them i slowly headed towards Geralton and the wind was blowin real bad so fishing was out of the question. Geraldton seemes a good city but because i couldnt go fishing anywhere i decided to head inland towards Sandstone and make my way back to Laverton.



a freindly fellow

big eagles everywhere





rough seas near Geraldton 

Mulga parrots

 Leaving  Geraldton and passing through Sandstone, Leinster, Leonora i arrived back in Laverton with 5 thousands extra ks on the clock refreshed and ready for another year prospecting for gold in the dry outback of WA. After a week of being back one of the fellas that lives here on the lease decidedd to head back east to see his family and asked if i could look after his dog, its a female blue healer only about 12 to 18 months old named Elvis, dont know who he named it after. The weather has been very hot with most days well into the mid to high 40s with the hottest day reaching 48.7 degrees in the shade. I have been detecting early mornings and found a patch which resulted in about half an ounce which im happy with but nothing the last week or so. At the moment its cold and raining and muddy only 20 degrees, a big drop from the mid 40s. cheers Stu



Elvis and a Bungarra

Mexican standoff, in the middle is a roo carcass

This is a pic of the area where camp is

A blind snake i found one night in the kitchen of the shed

half ounce