Back again from a few hours in the fields.
Thought to share some of my findings in the bush with you all again, well instead of traveling back to the area which I was intending to go today and over the weekend, I thought to stay local and go to a spot over the many years have proven to produce a good result if you manage to hit a target. Some days spend hours on not one single target - today started like one of those days as I walked through the old workings, across some mullocks into the lows and high spots.
As I continued along the line of workings cross cutting as I looked left and right on which part of the ground looked like it needed to be swung over, not with any real plan in mind just to be out there was good enough after having 6 days away from the fields.
The ground where I started extremely noisy - you know the type of ground that is highly concentrated with the marble size ironstone pebbles and then you hit the patches where the ironstone pebbles are like buckshot size and the coil starts to get extreme no matter how hard to balance we still push through. Well I kept battling with the constant noise but after a while you get the rhythm your focus and concentration level becomes heightened. I walked across this section up onto a mullock swinging extremely slow from left left left to right right right - long sweeps much like a side walking motion rather than swing left swing right. And maintaining that height as good as I could, as we all know even the slightest movement up ad down on these little pebbles sends false signals, not like ground noise just the pure sake that this ironstone is super red hot ground.
And there we are hit that signal that pulled me up - definitely higher than anything that was heard after battling the hot stuff - this was much hotter indeed. Now when you look at these images I want you all to look really close - I wanted to take the images in order of zooming so you can all see the detail in the ground and the piece of gold found, where it was sitting undisturbed for all of these years since it was pulled up onto the mullock from a miner. These things are pretty hard to find and that is another ticked off on the list.
1. In this first image is the grounds - area that this target was found - very interesting find this one
2. And here we go - look at these 3 images really slowly and try to see what you can find if you cant see in the first images eventually it will come to light - just take it slow and focus on what is sitting on the top of the ground. Dont skip to the next lot of images if you dont need to - if you cant see the target then by all means proceed to the next lot of image
3. If you didnt see it in the first lost of images - check this out - couldnt believe it sitting right there water washed by the rains and bright as ever - I did not disturb the gold in its situation so you could all see the sands dirt how it was lodged in the top - and over the wet seasons how the water has washed the sands away to show the gold. The pics turned out better than I thought with the focus.
Nothing else from in and around that area that jumped out as a potential dig target - many hot sounds as you can see by the minerals on top all around that it is that small little ironstones that give us some grief.
So I ventured on as we do again with no real plan in mind just enjoying the few hours out there, that was the first and only target dug within 1 hour - a few breaks in between. As I walked along more I noticed another vehicle and people standing roadside on the dirt track near my vehicle - there was a couple of tourist prospectors further up the hill in a parked area when I first arrived. I also noticed a 4x4 pull up right at the back on my car talking with these tourists.
The 4x4 is a guys I have met a few times while out prospecting, so I thought to go over and have a chat to break up the monotony of 2 hours with only 1 target. When I arrived a man was walking away lady walking about 10 meters away swinging a SDC2300 and the guy I know was walking towards me to have a quick chat, he left moments after and I thought to go and introduce myself to the tourist prospectors - the guy I couldnt see where he went so I introduced myself to the lady. How uncanny is this out of all of the millions of people and thousands of prospectors would I have ever thought that I would run into someone so random in the bush with her story.
Firstly she started saying how good the GP3500 machine is what I use - she told me her husband use to use that machine and swore by it, and she even said Double D etc - this lady indeed knew her stuff, the detector has a side protection cover and she knew straight away I was using the GP3500 just from visually looking at it - she was about 5 meters away when we were talking. And thats where she talked about gold finds she has had recently and better yet this is so awesome - she is the wife of Kevin Hillier - the founder of The Hand Of Faith - lovely lady and great conversation - what are the odds of this happening while you pick to stay local and go to a certain area. Pays to chat to many people just never know what stories you may come across and who you are meeting.
Anyway after that I continued back to the area where I was originally detecting and picked a nice flat section off the side of the main workings, very flat no signs of rocks on surface, really just top soils, heaps of grass weeds etc, but on each side of this area it almost wrapped around where I was detecting, a lot of conglomerate type rocks, small large, ironstone country, but flat with no visual surface rocks. When you look at the grounds you can tell that it would continue under but to what depth I wouldnt know. Just that I could see a red clay section on the side further down.
As I started the machine up - and within 20 minutes I hit a very small signal - this area was super quiet after battling the red hot ironstone pebbles and ironstone surface area's - so my concentration after that hot ground and going to super quiet with only that hum that we love to hear, was at its best for any little sound that the detector could interpret, and there it was a very faint little sound - repeatable signal. Lets scrape this one and see. You know when you scrape an area and when you are in the grounds that have proven to give you gold so many times, and when you get the 1 inch off the top you just have that feeling it is gold for sure, and then every inch or 2 you take away you keep watching the ground and layers what you are digging through, then eventually you see the rocks, gravels, and then you see some red clay to one side and the rocks and gravels look to be in a little pocket, they are the holes we love - well its probably not that often that the hole is exactly like I explained but it was in this hole, and we have had many like it so good to say this is Gold.
4. Let take a look at the progression holes, again took my time unearthing this to capture some images for you all. In these images you can see the scrape - was some charcoal but that was moved straight away - and the second image is looking away from the hole to show you no workings just the flat bush area, directly behind me is about another 40meters of flat area before the line of workings start - so that area will also be worth swinging all the way back and along side the workings towards the red clay area. Nice and shallow
5. In these progression images you can see the very light top soil dirt was maybe 6 to 8 inches - very light powdery dirt. And slowly started to see more rock as I got to the 6 inch level
6. I was using that pointy end of the pick for each layer - and when I knew the target wasnt too far - I noticed the pick hit some clays - red clay with all of these mixed together was a good indication of Gold - In these images you can see a section of the Red Clay buldged up because I left that in the hole by scraping all around to break to soils and rocks away from the hole as I progressed further. In the first image see on the left of the hole, then as you follow it across to the right side of the hole, the clay raises up and then the gravels caught lower on the right side.
7. Target Out and in the pile - the last step I dug the target out in chunks jut to ensure that it was not hit with the pick
8. That is the bottom of the hole after target removal - nice red clay level still with some gravels and see how the base is even and the previous image had the raised red clay with the pocket of gravels. I should have cleaned the hole better look like some dirt fell back in.
8. Depth of the hole - would be close to 11-12 Inches
9. Target in the hand - we all love this part - finally getting to see the target - gold or not either way its pretty exciting
10. Nice little piece - just goes to show sometimes walking away and coming back to the area has rewards - maybe I missed another piece from walking away, but making that decision to go and have a chat to come back to a slightly different spot - if those people hadnt arrived maybe no second piece of gold today. So thats just another story to add to the memory banks, its no hand of faith - but its in my hand and I certainly have always had faith. What are those odds
11. Returned home, cleaned 1 piece because the other was already rain washed - good to be back out there and prevailed with some color.
I left out that between these targets I found a nail as well. 3 targets for the day - or roughly 3 hours of detecting.
I hope you all like this post and will definitely be back out at my other spot over this whole weekend.
Also I have been thinking of a new thread for you all to enjoy and have some fun with, I will be working on it hopefully tomorrow when I am out in the fields, a lot of thought is going into it to try and make it a really good thread for all. When I have created and posted - I will also share the link name on this thread as well for you all. Hopefully you are all able to steer some people towards it and make it really kick along.
Enjoy your weekend - Happy Hunting
