MJB
matt
G'day,
On Monday myself and Kman decided to head over to Beaufort for a day out digging and scratching around to see what the old goldfield has to offer. We had spent the last week going over maps, Doug Stone and Geo vic and thanks to a bit more info offered by Golddigg@ we decided on a couple of spots to look at. The Beaufort goldfield is huge and you could spend days there just driving around looking and searching. We had to choose somewhere that was potentially going to give up some colour so with a few places set into the GPS we were set. Our prospecting arsenal consisted of my self built Dry Blower, pans and shovel and Kmans F1A4 mod2 and Whites GMT....how could we possibly fail??
We left at 5am and started the 3 hr drive to Beaufort. We got there in good time and found our first spot in amongst some old diggings. I found some good looking Mullock to feed into the Dry blower and went to town while Kman wandered off with detector in hand. After my first clean up of the blower I was pleased to see some nice looking colour in the pan...very promising I thought. After an hour Kman came back empty handed and had had enough of the old fencing wire he was finding everywhere so I let him have a crack at the blower for a while. He had a clean up and found some nice colour too so at least neither of us would go home empty handed.
It was now around 11am and the place had started to heat up nicely and we decided to head for one of our other spots to try. We drove around the scrub, passing one other prospector with a detector, gave him a wave and kept going as he looked pretty busy and we did not want to cramp his style. We found a good spot which had what appeared to be a reef mine at the head of a gully. Historical records say that Quartz reef mining was not very successful in Beaufort as the reefs were very hard to follow. The size of the mullock heap indicated that it was deep but there were shafts and costeans everywhere so that would suggest they had a bit of trouble tracking the reef. In the gully 100m downhill were some diggings so we set the Blower up again and had more of dig. Each cleanup of the blower, every 30 mins, showed nice gold and this stuff was coarse and not far travelled indicating it had come from the reef just up the hill.
Obligatory selfie!
It had started to heat up now and when the blower motor would not start and after half hour pulling and pulling I was fair knackered and decided I'd had enough. We packed up and decided to head over the hill in attempt to locate a puddler that was morked on the Doug Stone map as neither of us had seen a Puddler before apart from pictures. We found it, exactly where the map said it was and tried to figure out how they were using it which really highlighted the enormous effort the old timers went to.
Puddler
We headed off on our 3 hour journey home, absolutely stuffed but full of beans after having spent another day out in the goldfields. A final cleanup when I got home showed a modest amount of gold but some nice gold none the less. Some water worn and some coarse...its all good.
good colour
We will head over there again I'm sure and finish running the mullock heaps until I can't dig no more. It was a cracker of a day spent with a good mate and good colour, you can't ask for more than that!
Cheers
On Monday myself and Kman decided to head over to Beaufort for a day out digging and scratching around to see what the old goldfield has to offer. We had spent the last week going over maps, Doug Stone and Geo vic and thanks to a bit more info offered by Golddigg@ we decided on a couple of spots to look at. The Beaufort goldfield is huge and you could spend days there just driving around looking and searching. We had to choose somewhere that was potentially going to give up some colour so with a few places set into the GPS we were set. Our prospecting arsenal consisted of my self built Dry Blower, pans and shovel and Kmans F1A4 mod2 and Whites GMT....how could we possibly fail??
We left at 5am and started the 3 hr drive to Beaufort. We got there in good time and found our first spot in amongst some old diggings. I found some good looking Mullock to feed into the Dry blower and went to town while Kman wandered off with detector in hand. After my first clean up of the blower I was pleased to see some nice looking colour in the pan...very promising I thought. After an hour Kman came back empty handed and had had enough of the old fencing wire he was finding everywhere so I let him have a crack at the blower for a while. He had a clean up and found some nice colour too so at least neither of us would go home empty handed.
It was now around 11am and the place had started to heat up nicely and we decided to head for one of our other spots to try. We drove around the scrub, passing one other prospector with a detector, gave him a wave and kept going as he looked pretty busy and we did not want to cramp his style. We found a good spot which had what appeared to be a reef mine at the head of a gully. Historical records say that Quartz reef mining was not very successful in Beaufort as the reefs were very hard to follow. The size of the mullock heap indicated that it was deep but there were shafts and costeans everywhere so that would suggest they had a bit of trouble tracking the reef. In the gully 100m downhill were some diggings so we set the Blower up again and had more of dig. Each cleanup of the blower, every 30 mins, showed nice gold and this stuff was coarse and not far travelled indicating it had come from the reef just up the hill.
Obligatory selfie!
It had started to heat up now and when the blower motor would not start and after half hour pulling and pulling I was fair knackered and decided I'd had enough. We packed up and decided to head over the hill in attempt to locate a puddler that was morked on the Doug Stone map as neither of us had seen a Puddler before apart from pictures. We found it, exactly where the map said it was and tried to figure out how they were using it which really highlighted the enormous effort the old timers went to.
Puddler
We headed off on our 3 hour journey home, absolutely stuffed but full of beans after having spent another day out in the goldfields. A final cleanup when I got home showed a modest amount of gold but some nice gold none the less. Some water worn and some coarse...its all good.
good colour
We will head over there again I'm sure and finish running the mullock heaps until I can't dig no more. It was a cracker of a day spent with a good mate and good colour, you can't ask for more than that!
Cheers
