Last Weekend at Hill End
All week I had been going over my plans to adapt my river sluice to be used as a high banker as well. I spent a fair bit of time looking at the Wal-Banker (Thanks Wal) discussion and pics as well as other stuff I had googled up for good measure. On Wednesday night, out to the shed and with ideas in my head and the tape measure in hand, I drew up a rough plan and added to dimensions.
After dinner, I sat with pencil and square and tried to recall those tech drawing lessons from Old Northey, my industrial arts teacher back at Broadmeadow High. Reasonably satisfied with my drawing and happy that Ross the sheet metal fabricator wouldn't laugh at me too hard, I went to sleep that night resolved that I should get out on the weekend and do some more hunting for gold.
After a two hour commute, I got to the fabricator just in time and we went over my plan. All good, he understood and would call next week with the quote. Right, home now to pack the Disco with my sluice, bar, buckets, pans, crevicing device and swag. All my tucker cooking gear stowed in the esky and fridge set to freeze and an early night for an early start.
I had been watching the weather forecast all week and it was a toss up between Nundle and out around Hill End way. Hill End was predicted for a greater chance of rain than Nundle but, I had been there a few weeks before and besides, I had been thinking about the bedrock I had seen in the creeks at Tambaroora Fossicking Area and had been studying up what I could. I wanted to give it a go after doing one test pan as a last minute before heading home from Hill End a few month back and getting an encouraging show of grainy colour.
After getting away at an unhurried but reasonable hour, I landed in Hill End at lunch time having taken the Castlereagh Hwy before heading into the top side of Sofala and onto the Hill End Rd. Bathurst Council are still doing some restorative works on the wooden bridge over the Turon just out of Sofala and I was delayed for a few minutes as contractors traversed a mobile cherry-picker across the bridge. I was in no hurry, I was relaxing and as we crept across the old bridge with its shiny new white paint job, I took time to appreciate the time tested workmanship evident in the bridge and its design, despite the need to replace timbers from time to time. A glance over the rails also found that the Turon was running crystal clear and with the expected average level of water for this time of year.
With the benefit of daylight savings and pent up motivations to get into those rock bar crevices, I went straight out to Tambaroora and scouted out the spot I had been thinking of. With good access I parked up right next to the creek under a big old gum tree and unloaded the sluice. With no flowing water but more than enough to pump into my sluice with one end closed with a plate and angled 40 mm water outlet to wash the gravels in the hopper, I got to it. A few test buckets through the sluice and then a check of the black ribbed rubber at the head of the sluice and just under the hopper had me more than interested....nice colours, grainy and not rolled super thin like the alluvial gold in the Turon and I resolved to work hard for a few hours.
The spot I had chosen was about 75 metres down from the roadway crossing of the creek, just near the confluence of another re-entrant and a bend in the creek. Ideal with the rock bar and its convulsive spin creating crevice after crevice at a roughly 60 degree angle to the creeks meander through the Common and towards the now silted up concrete weir at the end of the Fossicking Area proper.
Shovels and buckets as instruments, I systemically cleaned out the red rock's jaws and jowls and picked the gold fillings from its jagged dragon teeth. Then, removing the scale and dross that remained with my yabbie pump crevicing device directly into the sluice hopper as the 4 degree tilt on the sluice and the slow but steady flow of water finalised the process of my geological dentistry, I could see the odd glimpse of yellow, even in the hopper on one occasion.
With the passing of four hours and the steaks in my fridge calling my name, I eagerly started on my routine of packing up and panning out my cons from the sluice. The sluice worked away at reducing the cons even more as I cleaned and layed the tools and gear out to dry at the back of the Disco and refurbished my crevicing device and hoses into the Alice pack it all lives in. An other slug of cold water from stainless flask in my fridge then, the pump and hoses were cooling and drying with the other tools of trade.
Thanks to the new legs that I had bought from one of our members, I had no need of finding the right sized rocks to angle my sluice for the clean out. Slightly canted to one side and into the waiting bucket went the mat from under the riffles and the richer cons from the black ribbed matting under the hopper at the head of the box. Five minutes later and through my sieves and into my 14 inch steel pan revealed a very pleasant surprise; grainy, the odd little bit of gold still attached to tiny stones and a nice little pile it made too. Scooping it up on top of my fingernail and into my 35 mm film bottle and dabbing up the rest with a very happy index finger, the last chores of loading my kit back into Disco was a breeze.
With a big grin of satisfaction and a fair bit of daylight still left, I explored a few more spots up n down the creek before heading into the Hill End town camping ground for the night. In desperate need of a shower to wash the stink and mud off, my $2 worth of hot water also soothed a sore back and shoulders from my days toil. With rain then falling, I set up in the camp kitchen and was glad I had not opted to camp out in the bush as I generally do in the warmer months of the year. With my belly filled with a tasty sirloin, spuds and some fruit and a bit of choky for dessert, I sat back with my feet up and read until I had reached my use-by date for the day.
That night, I drifted off to sleep debating the best place to continue in the morning and feeling well satisfied with my first day of the field trip.
The Peacekeeper.