WA Trip - 7 days in the outback over Easter to Anzac w/e

[Westaus]

So as the title states, my best mate and myself are heading off for our longest prospect yet. I have somehow managed to secure Easter Sun - Sun week away OMG. While the missus is not overly happy, she has given the green light. It was a gradual process extending out the time and the days. So I now had a date and time frame. Off to Reeds to sort out the detector hire.

With the detector organised and a little 6" coil for the CTX (Mine, mate using) plus a larger coil for the GPX5000 (Hire, me using) plus weekly hire at a very reasonable rate. Considering I am probably taking $7K + worth of equipment, that I just wouldn't have access to. Done and booked. Anyone who is in town drop in and see the folks at Reeds they have always been more than helpful with information and some little details here and there. Even taking the time to show me a few pointers on Geo Map. One of those annoying things you can't work out why it doesn't quite do what you want it to, then you are shown and the penny drops.

We use Geo Map on a laptop which we have designed a special cradle for. This is USB connected to a GPS receiver which sits on the dash (photos to follow) and gives us a live feed of our position. We overlay Geological data, Topo information and tenements with Live and Pending clearly identifiable, that way anyone questions us, we can show them why we are where we are and any disputes can be hopefully handled easily. I will download the latest tenements as of tomorrow night to make sure we are as accurate as can be with our locations. Anyone heading from the East (WA prospectors hopefully know about it already) this is a much easier system to start with than Tengraph, if you want to take out mining leases and put in applications etc... You will need tengraph for that information. If you are just wanting to know where to stear clear etc... Then Geomap (Free) with a GPS ($30 - $100) is a great start.

Geomap and other data - http://geodownloads.dmp.wa.gov.au/datacentre/datacentreDb.asp

Camping equipment has been checked sorted and put in place ready to pack Saturday night for Sundays departure. Spare battery (Solar) is on charge, freezer will be turned on Friday for it to start to get cold ready to go. Food purchased and pre made meals will be done by Saturday, basically heat and eat. A few nights are just casual BLT's and a sausage sizzle etc... Water purchased (48 Bottles) and bulk 60lts. Additional electrolyte mixes and cordial available, with a couple allocated each day if needed. Soft drink, neither of us are drinkers these days :8 All checked and ready. Car needs solar panel put on, but the car is going in for a service tomorrow, so once I get it back solar goes on.

The real hard part is to narrow down our search and focus on an area. We have only ever been able to get away for a few days at a time, most was 3 nights. One of the issues is that we spent more time driving around looking for that perfect spot, than we did actually having a coil swinging. So with this in mind we looked for a field that had produced some good results, but was still reasonably close. Now close in WA is somewhere near or abouts 500k's give or take. Also it needed to have pretty good access and features that were indicators, but perhaps a little overlooked by the larger more well known Goldfields. With that criteria I came up with the Yalgoo field and to an extent the Murchison mineral field. Looking at those areas Millions of ounces have been mined. I would think there may be a little bit still out there. Hopefully with our names on them.

We have also acquired some new toys to play with when out there, so all going well I should be able to post something pretty interesting on our return. If you have read this far thanks and I look forward to sharing further information and updates when I can.

Finally a big thanks to all of the help and information that the forum has provided, it helped keep me sane waiting for the day to get here ! With a super special mention to diggerdude who from the start has been very helpful with a wealth of knowledge provided to me and the general forum, I really do appreciate it. In closing a few quotes I like to try and follow -

"You only fail, if you give up"

"The longer you search and find nothing, the odds are you are getting closer to finding something"

6 P's

"Proper, Preparation, Prevents, Pi55, Poor, Performance"

You all take care and be safe out there, may the weight of Gold fill your pockets.

Westaus

 

[Goldagettin]

Westaus I hope you guys have a great trip and find a crap load of gold out there, but above all I hope you stay safe and ENJOY your selves.
I am really looking forward to your updates and trip cap.

Have a ball guys

cheers

 

[Westaus]

Thanks mate, you too and to everyone else. We certainly enjoy ourselves getting away from the city. My work phone and email is now officially OFF holidays have started. Time to fine tune some areas and new techniques learned with Geo Map.

- Voicemail changed, email out of office done. Holiday mode
- Backup battery is fully charged and set
- Car is serviced, plus I got them to put in a new battery as well
- Satellite Phone is connected and working, charging now
- GPS charging and Bushnell back tracker spare batteries done
- AA rechargeables in charger

Sorry for the long lists, but thought it may help someone else with their prep work and what some of us do. I am sure some just throw a pick, detector and a bottle of water in and head off. I tend to be a little more OCD than that

 

[WalnLiz]

Best of luck out there mate and hope that coil swings over a lot of nuggets. Look forward to seeing some pics of the trip.

We're heading over that way for a few months ourselves but will probably be quite a bit further north so wont be able to catch up for a beer.

Cheers Wal.

 

[markgoldhunter]

best of luck westaus sounds like you have the 5p's sorted. i am planning wa trip for next year so i'm keen to see your post trip pics.

 

[Westaus]

Well fellow prospectors we made it back all safe and sound, well mostly. The car took a bunch of stones from one area when a truck passed us and we ended up with 8 stone chips and one crack so my record of windscreens and Pajero's continues. However the bigger news is that after 2-1/2 years and well over 10,000 k's I found my first little nugget. while not going to pay off the mortgage, it was worth far more to me because it meant that if I can find one, I am sure I can find more. Now I have the test piece for calibration as well as the feeling that we are doing something right, perhaps not a lot, but certainly proof it is there and if we go over it. We should be able to detect it.

A summary of events for those interested.

The start was Easter Sunday after lunch once the Easter Bunny was all done, so Dad was packed ready to go. We headed for Paynes Find just out if town to camp for the evening, with stops and fuel we got to our camp around 6.00pm so no detecting just camp setup.

Monday - We headed for an area marked to the West where we saw a large flood area with good ranges in the area. At this point never travelling the area it was a sortie as well. We had a swing around and noticed someone camping, so went and had a quick chat and let them be, they had found some colour and were leaving Tuesday so we decided to come back later and not disturb them. Continued onto our second camp site further West of Paynes. One of the areas on the way back we found a Quartz outcrop and some good looking ranges that all fed into a catchment. This was on a live tenement so further investigating is necessary.

Tuesday - Stayed the night in the area to further investigate

Wednesday - Headed back to were we saw the other campers but decided to camp around the back of the hill so it was not in the same area as them, but in the vicinity. We searched high low and everywhere in between here. Good signs of geo, with Greenstonne, Quartz and Ironstone all present. We also had some fun with photography and painting with light. This was a fun way to go through a few hours and I was also able to get some great star shots. This is what the outback is about the stars are magnificent and hopefully this captures the atmosphere with the glow of the campfire lighting the trees.

Thursday - Stayed in general area for the morning the set out towards Mt Magnet. For those that are not aware it is called Mt Magnet due to its strong magnetic field and the effect it had on compasses. We headed East of the town for a likely looking area, it showed good signs of Laterite capped hills and plenty of pushings and activity. The weather had started to turn a little and we ended up having showers throughout the night. We ended up in the car watching World War Z on the Laptop so it was just like being at the drive in. Except for my ugly partner lol...

Friday - Worked the area some more in the morning and got a good signal but it was in stone that was just too big and hard for the equipment we had on board. so GPS marked and perhaps another time. It could have been ground noise due to the rain as well, but was consistent on both machines (CTX 3030 and GPX 5000) Decide to head into town for a few supplies (Ice Coffee withdrawals) seeing we had been East we decided to go West this time and found a nice looking patch not too far away. Being Anzac day we had a minute to ourselves and then a little retrospect to how hard and what it must have been like back then.

Working a small creek area plenty of junk I got a signal that was just different, nice high pitch with a tail to the tone. My mate puts it like saying HeLLo. I started sorting with my plastic scoop and was down to two little rocks put the first one over, nup. Now the second one yup that's the one. Normally my mate and I are a long way from each other, but this time he was only a few metres away and had started to walk over hearing the tone as well. Seeing me not quite sure he gave it a quick clean. I was still not convinced, back to the car and under the loupe. Wow I had found Gold. It was with my best mate of 35 years + and we shared all our trips together and now this. I can say that it was a little emotional, not tears but certainly a relief and confirmation that at least we were doing something right. So it was named Anzac seemed fitting. Some txts to the family and it was getting dark. The funny thing was we had someone pull in and camp about 100 metres away, first find and first time anyone had camped near us. The moved off in the morning so all good.

Saturday - Up at the crack of dawn (even before) ready to go, however we could not find a damn thing. Not another spec at all. We searched everywhere looking for just another piece. Also the rain was building to the West a decision was made to stay or head back. We both decided to stay and ride out and showers that were on the way. Unfortunately for my mate his cheap tent didn't stand up to the wind and he ended up doing a Tasmanian Devil (Looney Tunes) on his tent at bout 1am and slept in the car. He was not real happy. Me I was all good in my swag and stretcher nice and toasty

Sunday - Last day after a bit of laugh about the night before and the usual ribbing that only a mate can get away with spirits were back again, we went over the patch a bit more but we decided it was time to move on at least see more areas. We went to the other side of the area we found colour, but access was pretty limited found a patch near by though, got another signal I was sure was Gold but ended up being half a staple, yup half a staple Found a great flat area with a gentle gradient but it was huge and this is were a Quad bike would be perfect but not yet. Time to head back home stopped in a few places and found one area that we will go back and have a closer look at just Nth of Mt Gibson so close enough for an overnighter even.

So that was the trip and finally a little bit of success, thanks for reading and I hope that it may inspire some of you to get out there and have look. I am sure there is plenty still out there, just leave some for us as well.

Westaus

 

[Pilsner]

Wow, what a great story, beautiful pictures, I really enjoyed the reading
Congratulations to your first gold, I can only imagine, what a feeling it was (I've never found one, still dreaming about it).
Thanks for sharing and good luck for the next trip!

 

[Westaus]

Had a couple more pics of the areas to add, unfortunately I did not do a lot of photography. I mean after all it was a prospecting trip

I will have a video of some aerial shots as well, but that will take me a little longer. Thanks for the comments.

 

[BrisJoe]

Jealous much I am.
At this point in time I'll be looking until 2017-2018 when I finish my apprenticeship before I have the time and money to undertake such a awsome trip.

Did you run the detector over that quartz pile in the last few picts and take some samples to crush and pan?

 

[cormorant]

Good adventure there - and well presented I actually thought I was there for a minute ! but hey now I remember I was camped
in the west coast of Tassie for 4 days , it rained for 3 ! still great to be outdoors no matter where , I envy you guys and the easy access
to the gold fields - so good to hear you found your first nugget and looks great / you never forget your first , well done and many more
nuggets to come .

 

[Mr Boring]

Excellent photography WestAus!

 

[Westaus]

Thanks everyone for your kind words and sharing the experience a little. I just wanted to show some Aerial shots over camp on Day 2. I will start another when the video is done, could be a while. So in the interim here are the pictures from our little UAV we took away. Helps a bit in identifying areas, man made and natural. While I would like to keep the secret I am sure others will do this anyway, plus the forum is all about sharing.

 

[SirDigsALot]

Brilliant idea, putting that straight on the next toy to buy list!

 

[MJB]

That use of a UAV is the best I've seen yet. The images are clear and gives a great perspective and lay of the land. Brilliant...looks like a beaut spot.

Cheers,
Matt

 

[BrisJoe]

That's mad, you know you will now have to do a writeup in the equipment section about your toy so we can see how it works.
Is it just a gyro chopper? with a gopro?

 

[Mr Boring]

wow, mate, you got an excellent idea there, Ive been following some of the best UAV/FPV posters on youtube, With Dragonlink receivers you can fly up to 70km and return. Unreal! love it! check out rockyFLYR on youTube, USA was trying to ban Dragonlink and most things FPV last time I checked (like 2 years ago) but there is excellent technology out there to do surveillance on new areas. Here`s one of rockyFLYR`s earlier vids, Ive been following him since 2011..very cool
[video=480,360]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8yHsIb6Seg&list=TLEiCMQIaI7UG4Riue1neSjEGPap25Jj_Y[/video]

 

[Westaus]

I knew a few of you would get a kick out of this, what I looked for was ease of flying. Something that would give good video and still shots. Fairly well priced and many spare parts. This certainly fitted all of these and they are a heap of fun to use.

This is what I went for - http://www.dji.com/product/phantom-2-vision have a look around heaps of videos and new model has just been released... Enjoy and sorry to all those that just got bitten

 

[Goldtarget]

After reading this I want to say thankyou for taking the time to put this up, very informative and expressive, but more importantly a great story. This really epitomizes the underlying spirit of prospecting, great share. Truly inspiring.

 

[Beagleboy]

I love drones. They look like a heap of fun and take nice photos. Thanks for sharing.

 

[Westaus]

Did you run the detector over that quartz pile in the last few picts and take some samples to crush and pan?

Unfortunately that patch was on a live tenement, so it was noted for further trips that way. We now have a reference for plenty of prospects in this area. We have always stuck to "Blue or Pending" tenements. This is open for anyone to visit, if on Crown land with no native titles, or land holder you can visit these areas unannounced anytime. Other areas you need to get permits and forms to fill in. This is why we have moved in a few areas to see what is around. Knowing what we do after a few trips, we can compare back to our records and if we want start filling in forms.