I hear ya mate, I've had to pull out of my first hole because I belled out a bit on the shallow iron gravels so I can't sure it up to go deeper.
So the lesson learned combined with what you have said is to go to the very deepest and work my way back up.
I've allready started a new hole..
The ground type that all the gold ive got off the mullocks in this gully tells a story, the iron/quartz gravel layer has been ignored/thrown out around the collars.
Every nugget has come from either the larger broken quartz dumps or the yellow/white clay.
I've got nothing from one section of the...
Goldierocks, from what I'm experiencing from this 1 gully, @ approx 2m down there is a layer of gravels approx 0.5m thick, there is SOME gold in it but from deeper digging the ground is turning white/orange clay.
What's deeper?