Two Old blokes stuffing around in the bush

[Ward69]

 

[Ward69]

 

[Ward69]

After clean up

 

[Manpa]

The coins a nice find. layful:

 

[Ward69]

The weather was great. Not really sunny to show the fly poo. But having coffee and talking about your issues is the most important thing
Thanks Foz.

If only I was a park ranger for the day. Idiots stuffing it up for the rest of us

Listing of things seen today

1) high banker in a National Park
2) camping outside a declared area
3) leaving a fire going when no one is there
4) not having a clearing of 3 meters x 3 meters for a fire

Normally I dont complain, now walking ever second day, see idiots stuffing it up for all

] ]

 

[Ward69]

The coins a nice find. layful:

For a guide only

 

[Manpa]

The coins a nice find. layful:

For a guide only

I did guess that Ward69 but it was so nice and golden.

 

[just starting]

I suck at panning.

Haven`t quite the technique right . Tried using the old large pan and the smaller plastic one ,but it takes a lot of practice.

Watching some videos to get some sort of method that works for me. Gee ,there are a lot of different ways to pan gold properly .

To swirl or not to swirl ? Tap on the side or tap on the back to move the gold to the edge ? Tilt the pan up or down ?

Get the V in the pan . Use the pan underwater or not ? Everyone has a way that suit them.

Practice practice practice.

FOZ

 

[Ward69]

I suck at panning.

Haven`t quite the technique right . Tried using the old large pan and the smaller plastic one ,but it takes a lot of practice.

Watching some videos to get some sort of method that works for me. Gee ,there are a lot of different ways to pan gold properly .

To swirl or not to swirl ? Tap on the side or tap on the back to move the gold to the edge ? Tilt the pan up or down ?

Get the V in the pan . Use the pan underwater or not ? Everyone has a way that suit them.

Practice practice practice.

FOZ

Agree. Practice. But testing the area on where you likely to get results. And move on quickly to the next test. Read the creek on what it has to offer. Dont need the flash gear. It takes time. That hole I was digging was showing 6 pieces a pan. Then its worth sluicing. After 20 pans thou the sluice. The effort was really not worth it. But having time in the bush with a mate and coffee is. In a few trips you will get it more. I bet I lost some from the sluice and panning out. Im still learning ever day.

 

[Smoky bandit]

Don't think to much into it mate..It only takes a few seconds for the smallest bit of gold to get to the bottom of the pan.You just got to learn how not to wash it out

 

[RM Outback]

Yeah I'm with Smoky don't over think it just roll with it :Y: the more we do with anything the better we become at it and understanding what we're doing :beer: if we all payed attention to everyone's method to be certain we've achieved the best result without making mistakes to learn from we're in it for the wrong reasons. Ward nailed it, time out with a mate or a few or on your own is what it's all about any mistakes in method should be seen as a positive part of the learning curve :Y:

 

[just starting]

My problem is not trying to find the gold bearing spots in the creek ,but the actual method of separating the gold from the fine quartz and sand in the pan .
Should be simple ,but i must lose patience looking for colour in the pan when it takes so long to whittle the concentrates down .

It took me half an hour to work out the best spot to get the dirt out of the creek on the weekend by following the bends in the creek and where the water had washed into the banks . I dug my dirt from about 18 " down under the water near the silt and with a lot of quartz and black stone and sand . Remember the bushfire gold theory regarding erosion and gold making it`s way into the creek ? Looked a bit this way ,but what do i know ? Oh , and there was a big burnt tree in the water where i was digging. Anyway , i classified a whole bucket worth and put it through the sluice and then threw buckets of water into the sluice from a second bucket i had because of the lack of running water ,as i have previously mentioned. After that i emptied the 2 dream mats and some of the miners moss into bucket and then put it in the pan and panned for about an hour . By this time my leaky gumboots were full of water and giving me the heebie geebies . I lost patience after not seeing any colour and gave up.

I then went to Mark`s spot he was working and set up there. Only fine stuff in my pan after a bit of effort . Not sure that little 12 " pans works too good. Too flimsy.

And the old pan has rust ,so the lack of sunshine didn`t help to see any gold i had. And the rotten magnifying glass fell apart.

Thanks for the coffee. How many beers are you into reading the book or have you finished reading it already , Mark ?

 

[Ward69]

My problem is not trying to find the gold bearing spots in the creek ,but the actual method of separating the gold from the fine quartz and sand in the pan .
Should be simple ,but i must lose patience looking for colour in the pan when it takes so long to whittle the concentrates down .

It took me half an hour to work out the best spot to get the dirt out of the creek on the weekend by following the bends in the creek and where the water had washed into the banks . I dug my dirt from about 18 " down under the water near the silt and with a lot of quartz and black stone and sand . Remember the bushfire gold theory regarding erosion and gold making it`s way into the creek ? Looked a bit this way ,but what do i know ? Oh , and there was a big burnt tree in the water where i was digging. Anyway , i classified a whole bucket worth and put it through the sluice and then threw buckets of water into the sluice from a second bucket i had because of the lack of running water ,as i have previously mentioned. After that i emptied the 2 dream mats and some of the miners moss into bucket and then put it in the pan and panned for about an hour . By this time my leaky gumboots were full of water and giving me the heebie geebies . I lost patience after not seeing any colour and gave up.

I then went to Mark`s spot he was working and set up there. Only fine stuff in my pan after a bit of effort . Not sure that little 12 " pans works too good. Too flimsy.

And the old pan has rust ,so the lack of sunshine didn`t help to see any gold i had. And the rotten magnifying glass fell apart.

Thanks for the coffee. How many beers are you into reading the book or have you finished reading it already , Mark ?

Finished the book already. Enlighting great work from the guy who did it. The book was written in 1998 about 1850 gold fields, 21 years later most of the Public land has been sold off or placed as a nature reserve. To summarise it. The gold triangle flowed down to one point and its still there , with millions of tons already pulled out , but the water table killed off the gold rush with the Wars 1 and 2 and hard times pushing miners to find over work.

80/20 Researching/Digging

Took me 12 beers over to nights. To read 600 + pages.

Thanks Foz. For history lesson

 

[just starting]

Thanks Smokey ,RM Outback and Ward69.

My problem is too many things going on in my life and not being able to concentrate fully all the time. My mind is always ON.

Like what Stalk on mad max 2 said " carjunka carjunka carjunka

 

[just starting]

My problem is not trying to find the gold bearing spots in the creek ,but the actual method of separating the gold from the fine quartz and sand in the pan .
Should be simple ,but i must lose patience looking for colour in the pan when it takes so long to whittle the concentrates down .

It took me half an hour to work out the best spot to get the dirt out of the creek on the weekend by following the bends in the creek and where the water had washed into the banks . I dug my dirt from about 18 " down under the water near the silt and with a lot of quartz and black stone and sand . Remember the bushfire gold theory regarding erosion and gold making it`s way into the creek ? Looked a bit this way ,but what do i know ? Oh , and there was a big burnt tree in the water where i was digging. Anyway , i classified a whole bucket worth and put it through the sluice and then threw buckets of water into the sluice from a second bucket i had because of the lack of running water ,as i have previously mentioned. After that i emptied the 2 dream mats and some of the miners moss into bucket and then put it in the pan and panned for about an hour . By this time my leaky gumboots were full of water and giving me the heebie geebies . I lost patience after not seeing any colour and gave up.

I then went to Mark`s spot he was working and set up there. Only fine stuff in my pan after a bit of effort . Not sure that little 12 " pans works too good. Too flimsy.

And the old pan has rust ,so the lack of sunshine didn`t help to see any gold i had. And the rotten magnifying glass fell apart.

Thanks for the coffee. How many beers are you into reading the book or have you finished reading it already , Mark ?

Finished the book already. Enlighting great work from the guy who did it. The book was written in 1998 about 1850 gold fields, 21 years later most of the Public land has been sold off or placed as a nature reserve. To summarise it. The gold triangle flowed down to one point and its still there , with millions of tons already pulled out , but the water table killed off the gold rush with the Wars 1 and 2 and hard times pushing miners to find over work.

80/20 Researching/Digging

Took me 12 beers over to nights. To read 600 + pages.

Thanks Foz. For history lesson

You read really fast. You have barely had the book for 24 hours.

Yep ,it`s a pity we can`t get into those places in the book.

 

[just starting]

Had a fair crack at refining my panning today .

I ran last weeks` sluiced dirt through the first pan and couldn`t find the powder gold i thought i had.

Ran the second lot of sluiced dirt i got about a month ago and this is what i ended up with.

Then i spent ages trying to get my first smile and trying to take a picture of it.

Then while taking a third picture for a better shot with one hand and holding the pan in the other , i dropped the phone in the pan and spilled the pan.

Not sure if i lost much or any of it.

 

[Ded Driver]

haha all for the sake of 'no pic didn't happen' ey?
keep at it :goldpan: :Y:

 

[just starting]

Correct Ded Driver .

Almost the big fish that got away ,but i managed to get proof of it first. Only just.

One old bloke stuffing around at home !!!!!!!!!!

 

[just starting]

Back into it again ,today. More questions than answers on this trip.

The first one is why didn`t Mark have breakfast before a long day out on the fields ? I hope you got a good meal into you when you got home.
It was a long walk and a hard day.

We lugged our normal assortment of equipment into the scrub ,but came back to the car with a few kgs extra weight each .

There was alot of iron everywhere and we may or may not have found some fine gold. I got onto a few signals that went off on my detector and the pinpointer late in the day and Mark`s did the same ,so after not being able to see where the signals in the dirt were coming from ,we bagged up some dirt to take home and see what comes out of it.

The first picture is of what i picked up and doesn`t account for all of Mark`s finds .

This was a very busy area 160 years` ago. A heap of old mines ,and puddlers and all the good stuff like old camps and diggings that indicate it might be a good place to play .

I got lots of old nails ,some lead ,tin , iron and a handful of quartz that gave a signal and will be cleaned up to see if there is anything in them. We also got a bit of old glass from various locations.

I didn`t even know it was clean up Australia Day ,today . We took home heaps of rubbish and relics we dug ,but not much modern rubbish laying around the bush ,so that was good .

Here is the spike before and after i dug it out. Being close the surface was a bonus.

Then we found these old black glass bottles ,or what was left of them . Any idea what these were for ? The glass is very thick .

The first one has part of an inscription on it that says SEGISTERED . I thought it might have been REGISTERED ,but the first letter is definately an S . There is only 3/4 of the bottom of the bottle ,so i don`t know what the rest of it would have read like ,but it has this weird little oval convex shape on the inside of it.

The second one was found near the first one ,but there are no maker`s marks on it .

We came across a few mines that were very deep and perfectly round from the top ,right down to bottom of the shaft ,wherever the bottom was. Too deep to see for us . And then there were the deadset squarecut shafts that were very deep ,also.

What is the significance of the round shafts / mines ? Are they Chinese and they made them round because they had a superstition of square holes ? Or was there another reason ? Were the square shafts made so the cages with the miners in them could be lowered and raised without the cage spinning around ?

While digging a small signal on flat ground , i noticed the small water races around me ,only about 5 inches wide by 3 inches deep . They seemed to be structured in such a way that it was not made by nature. This one in the picture came to a T and ran off the right of the picture. There were many like this that i saw today including where i first started digging up the old nails. There was a a water run off from the hill that divided into 2 smaller run-offs and one of those lead to 3 more run-offs or water races that formed 3 sides of a square in a 5 metre radius. This indicated to me there was a building there and there was originally a gutter taking the water around it . I sussed this water bizzo out and then went to work detecting and digging.

This was a fascinating place to go . Many , many things to see.

It was a good ,so thanks , Mark.

FOZ

 

[Ward69]

Question. Why round shafts vs square shafts