Ditch
Doug
It all started nearly 30 years ago. A mate suggested a trip to Nundle to do some panning & fossicking. It was my first time out since I was a kid so pretty new to it all.
He was showing me the ropes & I was happy to get a few bits of colour in just about every pan. Last pan of the day just before dark & I was surprised & excited to see quite a large piece in the bottom of the pan!. Mate was smiling like a Cheshire cat & I was wondering how such a large nugget got through the sieve. Then it clicked.......the rotten b@#$ted had dropped it in my pan while wasn`t looking.
It wasn't even gold but a piece of brass that he had melted & dropped into a bucket. Looked real enough to a newbie though!. Should have known from the get go.........he was always pulling pranks at work & out fishing by yelling out "I'm on" & making out he had hooked a fish just to liven things up.
I`d told my old man what he had done, he had a good laugh. A few years went by & I called in to see dad when my mate & I where on our way to Upper Bingara for the weekend. The old man had painted a few pebbles gold, they looked pretty convincing, so I dropped them in my pocket for later.
Got to the site & started doing a few pans. He had the Highbanker set up & was working away until lunchtime. He went for a walk down the creek to check out a few new spots so I thought this my chance. Walked over & jammed the pebbles in the top couple of riffles & went back to eating lunch. Just before dark he shut the pump down have a look at the days takings. Didn't he get a surprise!. He was excited for a while........then the penny dropped!. After a few expletives & vicious looks he started laughing & said "you`ll keep, paybacks a b!?ch".
Needless to say he got me back a few years later while out fossicking for sapphires at Nundle, claiming he had found one, but it had actually been a sapphire off one of those sample cards from Tourist Info centres. I had the last laugh though, I actually found one later that day!
About 10 years had passed since our last trip. Got a call from him a couple of days before New Years seeing if I wanted to go up to Upper Bingara for a couple of days. Met him there the next day & we spent the day panning along the creek. He had been clearing an area above a bit of bedrock & getting some colour. I`d wandered down to where he was doing his last pan for the day. I was standing just behind him & dropped a small nugget of gold (maybe 1/2 a gram) over his shoulder into his pan.
He had been feeling a bit down all day, but finding the little rattler in the bottom of the pan really perked him up!. Sitting around camp that night he was telling me about what he was going to do the next day, clean off all the overburden of the bedrock, probably a couple of hours work. He was all exited that he had found a decent spot.
Couldn't help myself, had to tell him that I had salted his pan, didn't want him to lay awake all night thinking he had hit the motherload!. Knocked the wind right out of his sails for an hour or so.
No doubt he will get me back some day, at least I used the real thing that time, which he happily kept. It`s great to have a mate that you can joke around with, makes for a few good stories around the campfire but I`ll be sure to be looking over my shoulder on our next outing! :lol:
He was showing me the ropes & I was happy to get a few bits of colour in just about every pan. Last pan of the day just before dark & I was surprised & excited to see quite a large piece in the bottom of the pan!. Mate was smiling like a Cheshire cat & I was wondering how such a large nugget got through the sieve. Then it clicked.......the rotten b@#$ted had dropped it in my pan while wasn`t looking.
It wasn't even gold but a piece of brass that he had melted & dropped into a bucket. Looked real enough to a newbie though!. Should have known from the get go.........he was always pulling pranks at work & out fishing by yelling out "I'm on" & making out he had hooked a fish just to liven things up.
I`d told my old man what he had done, he had a good laugh. A few years went by & I called in to see dad when my mate & I where on our way to Upper Bingara for the weekend. The old man had painted a few pebbles gold, they looked pretty convincing, so I dropped them in my pocket for later.
Got to the site & started doing a few pans. He had the Highbanker set up & was working away until lunchtime. He went for a walk down the creek to check out a few new spots so I thought this my chance. Walked over & jammed the pebbles in the top couple of riffles & went back to eating lunch. Just before dark he shut the pump down have a look at the days takings. Didn't he get a surprise!. He was excited for a while........then the penny dropped!. After a few expletives & vicious looks he started laughing & said "you`ll keep, paybacks a b!?ch".
Needless to say he got me back a few years later while out fossicking for sapphires at Nundle, claiming he had found one, but it had actually been a sapphire off one of those sample cards from Tourist Info centres. I had the last laugh though, I actually found one later that day!
About 10 years had passed since our last trip. Got a call from him a couple of days before New Years seeing if I wanted to go up to Upper Bingara for a couple of days. Met him there the next day & we spent the day panning along the creek. He had been clearing an area above a bit of bedrock & getting some colour. I`d wandered down to where he was doing his last pan for the day. I was standing just behind him & dropped a small nugget of gold (maybe 1/2 a gram) over his shoulder into his pan.
He had been feeling a bit down all day, but finding the little rattler in the bottom of the pan really perked him up!. Sitting around camp that night he was telling me about what he was going to do the next day, clean off all the overburden of the bedrock, probably a couple of hours work. He was all exited that he had found a decent spot.
Couldn't help myself, had to tell him that I had salted his pan, didn't want him to lay awake all night thinking he had hit the motherload!. Knocked the wind right out of his sails for an hour or so.
No doubt he will get me back some day, at least I used the real thing that time, which he happily kept. It`s great to have a mate that you can joke around with, makes for a few good stories around the campfire but I`ll be sure to be looking over my shoulder on our next outing! :lol:
:lol:
